


Merchants of Nassau

by bluebacchus



Series: when you own the world you're always home [2]
Category: The Musketeers (2014), The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Improvised Sex Toys, Kidnapping, Light BDSM, M/M, Murder, Pirates, Post-murder sex, Prostitution, Riding, Rough Sex, Scent Kink, Semi-Public Sex, Sex, Spanking, Surprisingly Gentle Sex, The odd severed head as decoration, Under The Table Blowjobs, Violence, even the occasional cuddle, plotting the demise of your enemies while banging in the caribbean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:35:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebacchus/pseuds/bluebacchus
Summary: Somewhere between Portsmouth and Nassau, 'Monsieur Grimaud' becomes 'Lucien'.A sequel to The Innkeeper's Son in which Lucien Grimaud decides he is finished with France and seeks a companion to accompany him in taking over the New World.
Relationships: Lucien Grimaud/Thomas Jopson
Series: when you own the world you're always home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779061
Comments: 53
Kudos: 68





	1. A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to have fallen in love with the little universe I've created. 
> 
> (If you want to hang on to the idea that this is in any way historically accurate, let's pretend it's been the early 18th century all along.)
> 
> Please see the end notes for additional warnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter warnings at the end!

It’s his horse Thomas notices first. It’s led by a young man on horseback—a man younger than himself, with a sweet face that is coloured with despair. Dread and jealousy jostle for position in Thomas’s gut.

“My companion,” he gasps, pointing through the rain toward the road. A black shape is barely visible through the downpour.

“Go, get inside,” Thomas shouts over the violent noise of the rain. “Ask for Sarah.”

The stranger nods, and Thomas runs.

He finds Grimaud crawling through the mud one-handed. The other hand is pressed tight against his belly. His hood has fallen back, and rainwater soaks him through and falls off him in thick rivulets, mixing with blood and turning the dirt beneath him into red-brown mud.

He must be gravely injured, for he would otherwise never allow Thomas to wrap an arm around his waist and lift him to his feet like he does.

Grimaud grunts in pain or protest, but Thomas pulls his arm around his shoulders and slowly, he begins to drag them both towards the stables.

He drops Grimaud in a pile of clean hay before bringing the horses inside, making sure they are sheltered from the rain. He will get Toby to see to them later; right now, he has a dying man bleeding all over his hay.

“You’ve picked a terrible time to show up bleeding to death on my doorstep, darling,” Thomas says. The stables are full of the King’s horses, the inn full of soldiers on their way to the front. “What happened?”

“Shot,” Grimaud grunts.

Thomas raises an eyebrow, digging through storage boxes for bandages. “Obviously. When?”

“Week ago. Got the bullet out. Cleaned it.”

Thomas finds the bandages. The pounding of the rain isn’t enough to drown out the ragged breathing of the bleeding (dying?) man next to him. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the small ball of opium he liberated from his mother’s bedroom. His mother won’t be happy when she finds it missing, but the inn is full and he needs the help tonight. Now, more than ever.

“You have a pipe?”

Grimaud shakes his head.

“Swallow this, then.” Thomas pinches off a piece of the opium and brushes it against Grimaud’s lips. He opens his mouth, and Thomas pushes his fingers inside. Grimaud’s lips are cold but his tongue is warm as he laps at the pads of Thomas’s fingers. The memory of that tongue exploring far more pleasurable places springs to mind, unbidden, and he thinks about their first meeting. He has, true to his promise, thought of Grimaud every time he has taken himself in hand. This isn’t what he imagined when he thought of them meeting again.

Grimaud’s breathing slowly evens out. With deft fingers, Thomas unlaces his jerkin and pulls aside his undershirt. The rain and blood mix together and dye the lower half of his shirt a bright red.

The wound itself has gone ugly. Infection hasn’t yet set in, but it soon will if Thomas doesn’t do something.

“Do you trust me?” he asks. Grimaud’s eyes are closed, but he nods tersely, almost imperceptibly. “I need light. And your knife.”

He’s laid out on the wooden table like a corpse for dissection. Thomas gives him a strip of leather to bite between his teeth.

“I have to cut some of this skin off. The flesh has gone rotten around the edges. You’ll die of infection if it isn’t taken care of.” Without warning, he slices through the first of the blackening tissue.

Grimaud bucks upwards in pain. “You’re making the hole bigger,” he grunts.

Words of comfort will do nothing for a man like Grimaud, Thomas knows. He isn’t Thomas’s lover, no matter the promise Thomas made devoting himself to the man. It’s a mutual arrangement, one in which they both believe themselves to have the upper hand. Thomas may be the one holding the knife, but he knows how to play their game. And what is more, he wants to.

Thomas worries a lip between his teeth, makes his gaze go soft, cups Grimaud’s bloody cheek in his hand and runs a gentle thumb across his cheekbone.

“You said you trusted me, Monsieur Grimaud. I _need_ you to trust me. You can’t die on me. I need you, remember?”

Thomas puts the knife down, hovers over Grimaud’s face. “Look at me.”

Grimaud looks. He nods. Thomas picks up the knife.

The next time Grimaud shows up half dead on his doorstep is far worse. He’s alone, for one, without Gaston to raise alarm. But his horse, intelligent creature that it is, canters up to the door and neighs until Toby comes out and calls for Thomas.

Grimaud is unconscious, slumped over its back. He’s not breathing when they pull him down and lay him on the ground.

“Go get Mum,” he orders the boy. He cuts open the laces on the leather jerkin and does a quick assessment. He’s bleeding slowly from a deep laceration on his shoulder, but his shirt is wet with something that isn’t blood or sweat. It smells musty, like water dripping from old stone.

Thomas remembers the way Grimaud’s knuckled tightened against the edge of the bathtub when he was washing his hair and he almost sobs at the injustice of it. Grimaud, who hid his single fear so well, was drowned. Or at least, it had seemed that way. He had somehow found his horse and rode a half day out of Paris to find him. Thomas feels a warmth blossom in his chest. His _monsieur_ , on the verge of death, came to _him_. Thomas won’t let him down. He takes a deep breath and bends over, sealing his mouth over Grimaud’s. Slowly, he begins to blow the air back into his lungs.

His mother is much more skilled at resurrecting the dead than he is. Even now, into his thirties, Thomas isn’t sure if she was trained as a doctor in her youth or as a witch. Either way, he is banished to sit outside the kitchen while Sarah works.

Finally, she opens the door, drying her hands on an old dishrag. Her cuticles are stained black.

“He might stop breathing again in the night. Stay with him.”

Thomas hugs his mother for the first time in years.

Thomas is exhausted and doesn’t want to manage the stairs, so he and Toby carry Grimaud to Thomas’s little room behind the kitchen. The room is small and the bed is smaller, but Grimaud fits, and Thomas can fit in next to him if he moulds his body tight against the other man’s. He rests a hand on his chest and feels for the rise and fall of his breath. When Thomas tucks his head under Grimaud’s chin the puff of air from each exhale tickle the hairs that fall against his brow. He tells himself not to fall asleep, to stand vigil until morning when his mother said it would be safe. But he nods off against Grimaud’s shoulder, and does not wake till morning. 

They are both awoken by a knock at the door. The knock is merely a courtesy; Sarah enters without waiting for an answer. She is carrying a tray laden with two steaming mugs and a bowl of broth. In English, she addresses Thomas:

“His throat is all cut up. Get him to drink this before he speaks. The tea is for you.” She pauses in the precipice of the doorframe. “The Captain has been asking for you.”

Grimaud is scowling; no doubt he does not appreciate being left out of the conversation. But he’s awake, and Thomas strokes a comforting hand down his chest.

“I’m spoken for,” he answers simply, as he has before.

His mother shakes her head. “I hope he’s paying you well,” she says as she leaves.

With great reluctance, Thomas peels himself away from Grimaud’s side to retrieve the tray.

“Drink this,” he orders, holding the mug as Grimaud inelegantly hauls himself up to a sitting position. Grimaud accepts the cup. Despite the steam pouring off the top of the liquid, he drinks it all quickly, grimacing at the taste. The relief it brings is written on his face, however, and he runs fingers down his throat to trace the path of the brew Sarah had prepared for him.

“What did she say to you?” he asks hoarsely. It’s not what Thomas expected to be the first thing out of his mouth.

Thomas sips his tea, shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he says between sips.

“She upset you.”

“Yes, she does that.”

Grimaud’s eyes narrow, black and furious in the dim light.

“What does she make you do?”

Again, he doesn’t expect it. He knows Grimaud is intelligent, moreso than any other mercenary that has made their way through the inn. Thomas must have left his expression unguarded, the truth written all over his face.

Thomas answers carefully. “My fealty to you has resulted in a loss of income for her.”

“She sells you.” It isn’t a question as much as an accusation.

Thomas closes his eyes. Nods. Waits for the disgust, the rejection.

“How long?”

“She sold me to a brothel when I was eight years old to pay off an opium debt.”

Grimaud bites the inside of his cheek. Anger makes his eyes dance in the lamplight.

“No more. We will leave this place, and you will not let anyone touch you again.”

Thomas has heard it before. From Edward, first, then from the countless men who paid for him to warm their beds, who held him in suffocating embraces and whispered the things they thought he wanted to hear. But Grimaud is different.

“Suffering has made you strong, chéri.” He pulls Thomas against his chest, brushes the hair out of his face. “If you are mine, we will take what we deserve from a world that has failed us.”

“Yes,” Thomas breathes. “I’m yours.”

Somewhere between Portsmouth and Nassau, Monsieur Grimaud becomes Lucien.

It might be the first night aboard, locked in a cabin with one bed that Grimaud paid for with a bag of gold. It’s small, but the closeness does not bother Thomas. It makes it easier to pry Grimaud’s white knuckles away from the edge of the porthole and pull his hands towards more comforting purchase. The give of Thomas’s hips under his fingers distracts him from the constant swirl of the ocean that surrounds them, and he loses himself instead in the dips and crests of his lover’s body.

It might be the first time Grimaud calls him Tommy. The inflection is French; the translation is _mine_. They’re dining with the captain, as all first-class passengers are this evening. They are both uncomfortable facing the white tablecloth and the fine meal laid out before them, but moreso in dealing with the other dinner guests. The other passengers are Lords and Ladies, respectable patriots seeking prosperity in the New World and entertaining themselves with incredibly dull conversation. By the time they reach the main course, Grimaud has a hand splayed over Thomas’s lower back and Thomas has his hand down the front of Grimaud’s trousers, hidden beneath the fall of the tablecloth. His hand works idly, stroking up and down the length of Grimaud’s cock. Thomas doesn’t care what the captain and his guests think as he stares, watching the night-imperceptible changes in Grimaud’s expression as he pumps his cock beneath the table.

“ _Tommy_ ,” Grimaud finally growls and he stands up, yanking Thomas after him with his grip on his arm. He knocks over his bowl of soup, and it soaks into the pristine, white tablecloth. Thomas gives an apologetic smile over his shoulder as he is tugged out of the room. Grimaud picks him up, throws him over his shoulder and doesn’t stop until he reaches their cabin. All the passengers are at dinner, far from where they are. Grimaud throws Thomas down on the bed. One of the wooden legs of the frame splinters, but he pays it no mind.

“Tommy,” he says again as he tears at his clothes and bites at his skin. And later, after they’ve propped up the broken leg of the bedframe with a heavy book and lay together, red-faced and well-fucked, Grimaud brushes his nose against Thomas’s shoulder and whispers it again.

Or it might be the night near the end of their journey when Thomas startles awake and shoves Grimaud away, recoiling from the feel of a body in bed next to him. He backs up to the door, ready to run should the cruel figure from his nightmare move to hurt him again. Grimaud lights the lamp, and the shadows recede to the corners of the cabin. He says nothing, just looks at Thomas with sleep clouding his eyes. It’s a vulnerability that he has not shown Thomas until now. He sleeps, of course, but Thomas has never seen him wake, never seen him take a moment to rub his eyes and yawn like Thomas does when he wakes.

“Come,” Grimaud says. He lifts the thin blanket that covers his nakedness, inviting Thomas back to bed. He comes, but he does not lie back down. Instead he sits, knees pulled up to his chest.

Grimaud sits up next to him and pulls the blanket over Thomas’s knees.

“My mother tried to drown me when I was a child,” he says. “I reminded her of the times she suffered.”

“I don’t want to forget,” Thomas says, cheek pressed against his knee. “I’m angry.”

“Good.”

When his heart slows and the sweat on his neck dries, Thomas lays down facing Grimaud. He splays a gentle hand over his scarred chest and feels the beating of his heart beneath the ridges of smooth skin. He rests his forehead against Grimaud’s bare shoulder. A knot of scar tissue presses against his skin. He feels safe.

Just as Thomas begins to drift off to sleep, an arm slides around his waist, a comforting weight.

“When we reach Nassau, you will never feel afraid again, chéri. I will see to that.”

Thomas smiles; he knows it is true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter warnings include forced prostitution (including underage), amateur surgery, very bad parenting, mentions of drowning, and semi-public sex.


	2. Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimaud and Jopson arrive in Nassau.
> 
> Or, how Mademoiselle Gisele Beauchamp's day off at the local brothel gets worse before it gets better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings are at the end. Rest assured that this is a world where bad things happen to bad people and perpetrators are punished accordingly. 
> 
> In GrimJop land, we love revenge.

Nassau is anything but a paradise.

The picturesque palm trees may sway in the sea breeze, and the sun may shine brighter than Thomas knew it could, but he can see the town for what it is: filth. Underneath the gleam of the dock, scrubbed clean for the arrival of the passenger ship, there are deep gouges on the planks that could only have been made by men clad in irons being pushed down the ramp. He’s seen the Spanish lead such captured men overland, back in France. Some of them passed through the inn, locking their prisoners in the stables like livestock. He could not help them then, but he will help them now.

The next thing Thomas notices is a large white house sitting on the hill that overlooks the harbour, protected by tall gates. He doesn’t know who occupies that house, but they are certain to be powerful. It will only be a matter of time before he and Lucien cross paths with them. But for now, they will operate quietly, working their way up the chain and securing a position of power for themselves. By then, Thomas is certain that if he wants the house on the hill, Lucien will give it to him.

Their business plan is simple, and one to which Lucien has always abided: s _teal from the rich, sell to the rich_.

“What happens when we become rich?” Thomas had asked, seated on the floor of the cabin at Lucien’s feet. “Won’t we have to steal from ourselves?”

“Money buys power, Tommy,” Lucien had said, petting his hair. “We don’t stop at money. We don’t stop at power.” With a finger under his chin, he had tilted Thomas’s head up to meet his eyes. “We don’t stop until you and I own the entire island.”

For now, he is happy to be off the ship and walking through town, arm in arm with Lucien like proper gentlemen. Nassau is cleaner than Paris, though the buildings aren’t as well maintained as his inn. There are plenty of dark alleys, twisting their way between houses and shops where colonial cornices meet above. He sees movement within the shadows. He knows Lucien sees it, too. They both know how the world works. Those who live out of sight, hiding their petty crimes from the authorities, will not be their enemy. No, the real criminals live in big white houses on hills or sail away on big ships on the payroll of kings. The good people will be found among the refuse of the town.

“Here,” Thomas says. He stops in front of a dirty, white, colonial-style hotel. There is a pair of ladies’ knickers hanging from the balcony over his head. There’s no doubt as to what this establishment is. “I want this one.”

They enter.

The first thing he notices is the smell of cheap perfume and rotten wine. Thomas wrinkles his nose. Once he owns this place, he’ll keep the windows open for a week to get rid of the cloying, acrid stench. The second thing he notices is how silent the building is when he and Lucien walk in.

“Ah, my apologies monsieurs!” a girl says. She’s young; far too young to be here, with round cheeks and a smattering of spots on her dark skin. “We are closed today.”

“We’re here to do business, _chouchou_.” Thomas takes out his purse and pulls out a coin. With a friendly smile, he asks her, “Do you know where the best place to buy candy is?” The girl nods eagerly. She’s even younger than she looks. Thomas pulls out a second coin. “Can you go buy us all your favourites? We’re going to have a meeting with the owner, and I’m certain I’ll be very hungry when we’re done.”

“All of my favourites, monsieur?”

Thomas nods, then bends down to whisper conspiratorially, “Make sure you taste them all first.” The girl’s smile is enough to brighten the dour room, and she runs out the door.

Lucien is staring at him. Thomas shrugs. “She shouldn’t be here.”

Now that they’re alone, Thomas takes in the interior. They are standing in the entrance hall to what was once an elegant hotel, but has since fallen into disrepair. The grime that covers the white windowsills and cornices is thick. It will take a lot of work to make it acceptable. He says as much to Lucien.

“We aren’t here to become innkeepers,” he says.

“Nor are we here to enslave people in this dungheap!” Thomas snaps. “No one came for me when I needed them. I’m not going to stand by and watch people suffer like I have.”

Lucien is giving him that curious stare again. If Thomas were a bolder man, he would dare to say it meant Lucien was impressed.

“Um, hello?” A woman emerges from a room to the left. “Where’s my sister?”

“I gave her money to buy candy,” Thomas answers shortly. He assumes the little girl is this woman’s sister. They have the same accented French. “Perhaps you can help us, though.”

The woman offers him a big, fake smile and winks.

“Who owns this establishment?” Thomas asks politely. Lucien stands behind him, hand on the hilt of his blade.

“Monsieur Beauchamp,” the woman says, “But he isn’t available right now.”

“Ah,” Thomas says. “We’ll wait.”

The woman looks behind her at the door she came through. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I promise we’ll be on our best behaviour. You won’t even know we’re here.”

“Well,” she taps her lip with a finger and looks Thomas up and down, “I suppose.” She holds the door for them and they enter into a sizeable parlour filled with a maze of mismatched chaises and chairs, many occupied by men and women of varying nationalities. “Please, make yourselves comfortable while you wait. The girls will ensure the time will pass quickly.”

Thomas can feel Grimaud’s glare behind him. His practiced smile, however, remains in place and he asks to be pointed towards the most experienced of the women.

“Monsieur Beauchamp’s niece,” the woman says.

They are pointed towards a short, dark-haired woman in a purple slip dress. She is lounging on a black sofa, glass of wine in one hand and a cigar in the other. Thomas likes her already.

“Good afternoon,” he says, sitting across from her in an armchair. Grimaud remains standing, eyeing the staff of the brothel with suspicion, committing their faces to memory should anything go awry.

“I only do one at a time,” the woman says.

“That’s a lie and you know it, Gisele!” a young woman pipes up from behind her.

The woman whips around and tosses the glass of wine in the other woman’s face. “I’m in charge when Marc is gone. And he’s busy, isn’t he?”

The other woman rolls her eyes and stands. “Thank fuck for that,” she mutters as she stomps away. Thomas averts his eyes when he realizes she is nearly naked.

“Aren’t you a shy one,” Gisele laughs. She makes to pinch Thomas’s cheek, but her hand is stopped by Grimaud’s iron grip.

“We’re here on business,” he growls.

“Then you’ll excuse me.” Gisele relaxes back into the cushions, idly spinning her empty glass between her fingers.

“Actually, our business is with you, mademoiselle.” Thomas says.

“Oh?” she says. “Why?”

“We’re taking control of this establishment. We consider your experience an asset, and would like your cooperation in order to avoid unnecessary murder.”

Grimaud turns, and she catches a glimpse of his gun.

“Right. Let’s go upstairs,” she tells him, and Thomas and Grimaud follow her up the stairs.

The room she leads them to would have been ornate and decadent, had it been kept well for the past ten years. Thomas shudders at the cobwebs in the corners and the creak of the bed as Gisele sits down heavily. She wraps a robe around herself; it must be her room. He seats himself in the only chair. The cushion is sticky. Thomas gives himself a moment to fantasize about burning this pair of trousers to calm his stomach and be sure he isn’t going to hurl all over the spotted carpet. Grimaud stands near the door, listening to him with one ear and for movement outside with the other.

“What do you want from me?” Gisele asks coolly.

Thomas crosses one leg over the other. “Cooperation, for now. Space, later. Room to store our goods once we get our business established.”

Gisele snorts. “Ah, yes, you and every other man who shows up in this town. Fortunes to be made in Nassau! And then you’ll find out that fortunes aren’t earned, they’re stolen. Stolen from pirates and the shipping syndicates that own this entire island. Good fucking luck, gentlemen. You’ll be back on the boat or dead within a fortnight.”

“You certainly know a lot about the economics of Nassau.”

“I’m a whore, I’m not stupid.”

Thomas smiles, catches Grimaud’s eye. He nods.

“Wouldn’t you prefer a different profession, Mademoiselle?”

She scoffs, taps the ash off her cigar on the edge of an overflowing ashtray. “I’m fed. I’m sheltered. It could be worse.”

“It could be better.” Thomas leans forward in his chair. “Fortunes to be made in Nassau, you said.”

“Not for women like me. I don’t know any different.”

Thomas leans back again, crosses his ankles in front of him. He is exhausted: he didn’t sleep a wink last night. Planning with Lucien had taken carnal turn (as it tends to do) and they spent last night with Thomas in Lucien’s lap, taking his reward for being _so clever, so smart,_ _a good boy, a good pet_ and when Lucien sucked a blossom of red into the skin behind his ear and whispered _we are stronger together, Tommy_ the head of his cock rubbed against the healed gunshot wound on Lucien’s stomach and he came so hard he saw stars.

But he is so close now, so close to securing their first objective _already_ and he won’t back down for something as trivial as sleep.

“You’ve been here long, then?”

“Since we arrived. My cousin, Nadja, and I came to France when we were girls, but we never really belonged. We jumped at the chance to join Nadja’s father in the ‘Free Port of Nassau.’ Uncle Marc, a most charming gentleman, offered us the choice between prostitution and slavery.”

Thomas bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to bleed.

“Is there a need to discuss this any further?” Grimaud asks. “When can I kill him?”

“He keeps a man with him. A big man. Huge. I’ve seen him crush women’s throats with one hand.” Gisele closes her eyes, and for a moment, Thomas can see on her face that she has lost someone she cared about.

“Is he ever alone?”

“Only when he’s with one of the girls. His big man waits outside. You saw him when we came up.”

Thomas did. The man is huge. Grimaud seems unfazed.

“He won’t be a problem,” Grimaud says.

Thomas trusts him. He continues.

“You know business, mademoiselle. You know how people behave. You know Nassau. We could use someone with your knowledge.”

Gisele nods towards the hall. “Uncle Marc will never let me go.”

Thomas gestures towards the door where Grimaud leans, arms crossed over his chest. “Monsieur Grimaud has a way of convincing people.”

“And you think buying my freedom will buy my cooperation?”

Grimaud unsheathes his dagger. “I’m not buying anything.”

Gisele scowls. “Let my cousin go free instead. She has it worse.”

“Mademoiselle Gisele,” Thomas says slowly. “This is not a negotiation. We _will_ be taking over this brothel, but your cooperation is voluntary. And,” he pauses, takes a moment to breathe in the hot and humid air that heralds his new life, “you will _all_ be free when Monsieur Grimaud is done. You may mourn your uncle now, if you wish, but please don’t try to stop us.”

She snorts. “I’d kill him myself if it didn’t deprive Nadja of the pleasure.”

“Where is your cousin?” Grimaud asks. He is impatient, Thomas can tell. He shows no outward signs of it except to tap his middle finger against his pistol, sheathed in his belt.

“Room across the hall,” she says.

“And your uncle?”

She pauses, then says slowly: “Room across the hall.”

Grimaud swears and yanks the door open so hard it creaks on its rusty hinges. Gisele looks at Thomas. For the first time, she looks afraid.

Outside the door there is a gunshot, a crash, and the slick, sliding sound of someone falling to the floor slowly.

Then a crash from across the hall, a scream, and the soft sound of metal meeting flesh.

“Get dressed. Your cousin wants to see you,” Grimaud’s gruff voice carries into Gisele’s room. A moment later, a dishevelled woman with close-cropped curly hair and dark skin falls through the doorframe.

“What’s going on, Gisele?” she asks, horrified. Then she starts to laugh.

The severed head of Marc Beauchamp watches their discussion through half-lidded eyes. Nadja’s eyes keep drifting towards it. She keeps giggling, which sets Gisele off giggling, and then Grimaud has to clear his throat and glare at them and Thomas understands their giddiness but he really, _really_ wants to end negotiations and go to sleep.

“We’ll open the lower floor as a public house. Keep the couches and chairs, make it comfortable. Any woman who wants to leave is welcome to; everyone is welcome to remain here and remain employed. This place needs maintenance, and we’ll need cooks and servers.” Since the four of them have sat down, Thomas and Gisele have agreed to oversee the transformation of the brothel into a functioning tavern; it will disguise his and Grimaud’s smuggling operation behind a successful business and no one will question the closed-off ballroom filled with stolen goods.

“I know someone who will provide you with as much manpower as you like if you have the coin,” Nadja says, “but you won’t like it.”

“The world is the same everywhere,” Grimaud spits. “Rich men exploiting poor men, selling lives for profit. Slaves, Tommy,” he says, noticing the frown on Thomas’s face. Understanding sets in.

“Can we help them?”

“You could, but you’re going to have to kill a lot of white men,” Nadja says. She doesn’t look overly concerned. Grimaud looks to Thomas, but his attempt at answering is overtaken by a yawn.

“We will discuss this tomorrow,” Grimaud says to the women. “You will provide us with a room.”

Thomas, exhausted though he is, intervenes. “What Monsieur Grimaud means is that we _request_ a room to stay in until we find a suitable house.”

“Just one?” Gisele raises an eyebrow, smile tugging at her lips. A look from Grimaud has her biting her lip and pointing down the hall in silence.

Grimaud presses the head of Marc Beauchamp into Nadja’s hands. “Do with this as you please.”

The room they are given isn’t much different from Gisele’s. The bed sheets smell musty, a more favourable scent than what Thomas imagined the bed sheets at a brothel to smell like. He closes the door behind them, and they are alone.

“I think that went well,” Thomas says. It is an understatement. He can’t imagine it going any better. They’ve been in Nassau for less than six hours and already share ownership of a brothel-turned-tavern and a hidden-in-plain-sight warehouse. And Lucien has only had to kill one man.

There is a knock on the door. Gisele brings in a basin of water and a stack of cloths.

“Thought you’d want to wash the blood off your man before getting in bed,” she says, and disappears back through the door. The sound of excited chatter comes from below them.

Both Lucien and the bed look equally enticing. Lucien, hair matted and greasy from the long journey at sea, looks every bit the rogue that showed up on Thomas’s doorstep months ago. He wants to bend over for him, be possessed once again in a bed that does not pitch and tilt with the waves that rock them; feel his hands, still bloody and warm, clutch his hips hard enough to leave bruises that he will cherish in the morning.

But he hasn’t slept in far too long, so Thomas sheds his clothes completely and slides beneath the covers.

“Wake me when you’re done washing, darling,” he says, and falls asleep.

He wakes in the morning with Lucien’s lips pressed against the back of his neck and an arm slung possessively around his middle. Thomas has never slept so deeply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning for: Organized prostitution/forced prostitution/a sex worker uses the word 'whore' to refer to her occupation/implied parent-child incest/Atlantic slave trade/murder
> 
> Anyways yeah I promise they bang in the next chapter


	3. Liver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There are an awful lot of men on the island who hate me,_ Thomas thinks as he feels the knife sink into his belly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Your beloved author is feeling under the weather and as such has little patience for regularly scheduled updates. 
> 
> It's time for things to get serious in the Caribbean. Extra content warnings at the end.

_There are an awful lot of men on the island who hate me_ , Thomas thinks as he feels the knife sink into his belly.

“Stop, we need him alive!” one of the angry slave traders tries to shout. He makes it half-way through the sentence before Grimaud has a knife buried in his throat and he dies, drowning in blood on the (freshly scrubbed) wooden floor of their little two-room house.

Thomas looks around for a weapon as the other slave trader approaches him again, cornering him against the oven. Thomas bites his lip hard enough to draw blood and, with a grunt, pulls the knife from his stomach. He slaps his left hand over the wound, arm wrapped tight across his stomach, and tries to hold the knife steady in his shaking right hand.

“You’re not getting out of this house alive,” Thomas says. “You may as well surrender and save your own life.”

“Brave words for a dying man,” the man says, and lunges, barehanded, at Thomas’s neck. The knife is knocked from his hand and he is knocked to the ground by the slave trader—he’s so heavy, he’s crushing the breath from his lungs—his hand is wrapped around Thomas’s neck and he can’t push him off—the wound on the right side of his belly is on fire, blood pulsing out as he struggles to breathe—he can’t breathe, he’s going to die--and then he is released, and the slave trader’s eyes go wide and a strong hand covered in blood is pulling the man back, rolling him off Thomas and he can see Lucien kicking him in the head, over and over. The sound of his skull cracking under Lucien’s boot should be horrifying, but Thomas doesn’t have the energy to be disgusted. He sits up, drags himself away to where he keeps his sewing kit because there’s no way this is going to heal on its own. He kneels, finds it on the shelf, but his head is spinning and he thinks he might vomit from the pain or the squishing sound coming from Lucien’s boot stomping brain matter into the floorboards.

Then it is silent, save for Lucien’s heavy breathing as he crouches down behind him and lets Thomas collapse in his lap. The sewing kit slips out of his hands and lands with a thud on the floor.

He is safe now, and his blood quiets in his ears. He prods the wound gently with a finger before the pain conquers the adrenaline. It’s deep, but small; only as long as the knife’s width. The upper right abdomen. Stomach, Thomas thinks. No, he corrects himself. Liver. The liver regenerates.

“Tommy,” Lucien says. He never needs to say anything beyond that. From a man who has never given or received affection before, it is more than enough.

“My darling,” Thomas says, reaching up to trace a bloody finger over Lucien’s cheek. “Just a scratch.” His body takes this moment to betray him and a fresh gush of blood spills out of his wound as he reaches for the little box of sewing supplies.

“Just a scratch?” Lucien asks wryly. He picks up the sewing kit and holds it out of Thomas’s reach.

“Yes, Lucien. I’ll stitch myself up and be good as new tomorrow.”

Thomas struggles to his feet, one hand still pressed tight against the wound. He reaches for the sewing box.

His hands shake.

“Ah, maybe I can’t stitch it myself,” Thomas says. His hands vibrate in front of his eyes. He can hardly grasp the kit as his vision swims before him.

“We’ll find a doctor. Lay down.”

Thomas prods the knife wound again. A flash of pain bursts in front of his eyes and he sways, then he is falling, falling until Lucien catches him and picks him up and carries him to their kitchen table.

His focus waxes and wanes, in and out, and each time he catches himself before he fades into unconsciousness.

Lucien offers him a bottle of rum. He drinks until the sweet burn of it in his throat is too much, but it doesn’t help the pain.

He is offered a cup of water. A pinch of opium sits in it, dissolving.

“Why do you have this?” he asks. The smell is nauseating. It reminds him of his mother.

“For times like this,” Lucien answers simply. “Drink.”

Thomas hesitates, so Lucien pulls his shirt up and upends the half-empty bottle of rum on his wound.

It’s agony; Thomas drinks.

He can slowly feel the pain turn dull under the drug’s effect. He’s sleepy now, so sleepy, and he doesn’t like the feeling at all, doesn’t like losing control like this. He can’t stop the words pushing their way out of his mouth when he says,

“I don’t want to lose you.”

He can see Lucien bent over with a sewing needle in hand, stitching up the gap in Thomas’s flesh. His hands are red with his blood.

“First we have to make sure I don’t lose you, hmm?” he says, neck still bent.

“Livers regenerate,” Thomas says. He hates his mother, but he has learned much from her. “I’ll be fine.”

Lucien pauses his suturing, looks up with an eyebrow cocked. He shows Thomas his hands, slippery with bright blood.

“I’m going to get you a doctor,” he says again.

Thomas feels sleep begin to drag him down, and he panics, clawing his way back to wakefulness.

“Don’t leave me,” he says, and succumbs.

He wakes up hours later in great pain. Thomas is tucked into bed. His cheek is pressed against Lucien’s clothed thigh, and a hand strokes his hair. He blinks the unnatural sleep from his eyes and tries to sit up. The hand in his hair tightens and pushes his head back down to the pillow.

“Rest,” Lucien commands. His other hand holds a book open against his knee, and Lucien returns to squinting angrily at the words.

“You’ve picked a difficult way to learn English,” Thomas smiles as he closes his eyes and rubs a cheek against Lucien’s leg. He wonders if the dead men are still lying on the floor.

“Hush,” Lucien says, but there is amusement in his voice. The pain bites at his side but he relaxes into the pillow. He sleeps.

When he wakes again, it is night and he is alone. The vacant space next to him, all wrinkled sheets and mussed blankets, is still warm. The unmistakable sound of a shovel hitting dirt comes from out back near the stables.

He drags himself out of bed, hand pressed against the padded bandage that Lucien wrapped around his belly. It burns, and he feels light-headed as he stands. Blood from the dead men’s bodies stain the wooden floor. It would take just a quick trip to the well to prepare a bucket of sudsy water to scrub the floor clean. Thomas picks up an empty basin and pushes open the door.

Lucien stops digging as soon as he catches a glimpse of Thomas. He’s covered in dirt, sweat, and grime, and it makes Thomas long to bathe him, just as he did when they first met. He’s only waist-deep in the grave and hops out easily.

“Oh no,” he says in lieu of greeting. “Back to bed with you, Tommy.”

“I feel alright,” Thomas says. He covers the wave of dizziness with a step forward and a smile. “I just want to clean the floor before it stains.”

Lucien waits until Thomas reaches towards him to scoop him up like a bride and carry him back inside.

“Stay, or I will tie you to this bed.”

A hundred images flash through Thomas’s mind, none of which involve recovery. He is lowered into bed gently, but his side still burns in pain.

“You can’t keep me here after gallivanting around France for weeks with a gunshot wound in your stomach.”

Lucien snorts. “That had to be done.” And then: “You must recover. We have much to do.”

Thomas nods. Lucien hands him a book. He lets their fingers brush when he takes it, but it isn’t enough to sate him. Thomas beckons him closer. Humidity and dried sweat have made Lucien’s hair soft and fluffy beneath his fingers as he pulls his face in for a kiss.

“I’ll rest,” he says, when Lucien pulls away. The words mean more: _Thank you for saving me, thank you for taking care of me, thank you for being mine._

Lucien nods, and returns to bury the corpses of their first enemies under cover of darkness.

They come up with their best laid plans in bed. Not that Thomas has a choice for the next few weeks—he’s tried to get up and cook dinner, or heat water for a bath, or go put out fresh hay for the horses, but each time Lucien finds him and picks him up like an ill-trained puppy and carries him back to bed. He does not, unfortunately, tie Thomas to the bedframe.

“Does Nassau have a king?” Thomas asks one afternoon. It is raining, but the air is still hot inside their cottage. He has pushed the blankets to the bottom of the bed. The book he had been reading is gone, thrown at Lucien in a fit of boredom-induced rage and since lost somewhere out of Thomas’s reach.

“A governor,” Lucien says beside him. There is a bruise on his shoulder from the book that is visible through the thin linen of his shirt. He had relented, as he always does, to sit with him and entertain Thomas until the sun goes down and they can sleep.

“Hmm.” Thomas closes his eyes and brings forth the image of the governor’s house on the cliff. It’s huge—like a palace—with white columns and a beautiful garden. Six months ago he would only wonder about the height of Lucien’s ambitions; now, he asks.

“Will you be governor?”

A snort. “Men like me aren’t made for politics.”

“Then I’ll become governor. And you can remain in the shadows, my secret weapon. Do you think there’s a throne room in the governor’s house?”

“I’ll build you one.”

Thomas shifts, wiggling sideways until he can rest his head in Lucien’s lap. The wound in his belly doesn’t hurt much anymore; in another week he should be able to leave the house without being chastised and hauled back inside. But he wants to be touched, so he pushes his luck because he knows he can.

“I’ll have you bend me over my throne. Take me from behind. Remind me even though I’m the most powerful man on the island I still belong to you.” Thomas reaches a hand down between his legs. He hasn’t been touched since his injury, and he finds himself growing hard under the lightest of touches.

“You won’t forget.”

Thomas turns his head, rubs his cheek against the lightweight cloth that separates him from his quarry.

“It’s been so long, _monsieur._ I barely remember the feel of your cock inside me.”

Lucien sinks a hand into his hair and pulls it by the roots; the flash of pain is what Thomas craves.

“You greedy thing,” he says. His voice is low, menacing, and it goes straight to Thomas’s prick. “I play a perfect nurse to you and all you can think of is getting fucked.”

“Haven’t I been good for you, Monsieur Grimaud?”

Lucien laughs—a single bark of laughter—and palms Thomas roughly through the fabric of his nightshirt.

“No,” he says. “You’ve been very, very bad, Tommy. Always out of bed, trying to scrub the floor or cook me breakfast when you should be resting, healing up that wound so it doesn’t scar your lovely skin…” Thomas keens, pushing his hips into Lucien’s hand.

“Only I’m allowed to mark your skin,” Lucien says, removing his hand to trail soft fingers over the bandage.

“Yes, Monsieur. Please, I need you. I’ve missed your hands on me. I’ve missed your teeth on me.”

Lucien rearranges him gently on his good side then lies down behind him, his front pressed against Thomas’s back.

“You’re in no position to make demands _, chéri_ ,” he whispers. “You will take whatever I want to give you.”

Thomas feels his cock twitch in anticipation. _This_ is the Lucien he has missed: dangerous, possessive, yet unequivocally his alone to enjoy.

“If it hurts, I stop.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“If your wound begins to bleed, I stop.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

Lucien bites at his neck and slides a hand under Thomas’s thigh. “Don’t let that stop you from screaming, Tommy.”

Thomas obligingly lifts his leg, bare under his convalescent’s nightshirt. He waits with bated breath. His wound aches, but barely, and even if it felt as fresh as the day he was stabbed he wouldn’t say so. He wants this. He _aches_ for this in a way he never thought possible.

Sex has always been a transaction, or at best, an investment. There was no room for him to enjoy the slide of skin against skin, to lay himself bare beneath another’s hands that seek to wring out every last gasp of pleasure within him. He played a part—carefully, and well—reading the desires of others and becoming whatever they craved.

But Lucien wants _him_.

He wants Thomas as he is, free of his many masques, teasing and conniving and honest and angry. He doesn’t say it—he wouldn’t be Lucien Grimaud if he did—but he returns for him, again and again. In France, yes, but here, too. Over and over again, he has returned to Thomas’s bedside, once with a doctor and then alone, cleaning his wound and wiping the sweat from Thomas’s brow while he slept. Washing him, cooking for him, scrubbing the stained floor clean of blood before finally giving up and returning from town with a ridiculous rug made from the skin of a white bear that had found its way south from the Hudson’s Bay Company; acts of service that make Thomas’s chest ache to think about.

When Lucien enters him, oil-coated fingers sliding against his thigh, he can’t stop the moan that escapes him. It has been so long, and he’s forgotten how good this feels. The fullness inside him grows and he mewls into the arm that pillows his head. He can feel when Lucien’s cock is all the way inside him; he can feel the warmth of skin against his backside. He wants to sink into the cradle of Lucien’s hips and stay there, feel this exquisite burn always, and exist solely as a creature of pleasure.

And then Lucien begins to move inside him, and Thomas gives himself over to sensation.

He can feel all the places where their bodies touch; Lucien’s chest against his back, their legs entwined, the heavy burn of a thorough fucking. He can feel the hot breath on the back of his neck, the arm that pillows his head, the other that wraps around his middle, pulling him closer and holding him tighter. Lucien hasn’t pulled out yet, and he hums in satisfaction as Thomas continues to clench around him in the aftershocks of his orgasm. He thinks about the mess inside him, how the come will drip out of him when Lucien removes himself, and he feels himself spasm again.

“One day I’ll find a stopper,” Lucien whispers in his ear, barely audible, “and I’ll plug you up and keep you full of my seed.”

Thomas’s cock twitches.

“You know,” he says, craning his neck to look behind him, “I was thinking the same thing.”

Lucien laughs, and pulls his softening cock out slowly, peeling his body away from Thomas’s. He mourns the loss of both, but he does not worry. Lucien will return.

It pleases Thomas greatly to see the care Lucien pays towards his cleanliness. A soft cloth soaked in warm water runs over his body, erasing the evidence of their coupling and leaving Thomas feeling cleaner than he was before.

“You’ve gotten quite good at that, darling,” he says.

Lucien tosses the cloth towards the washbasin and shucks the loose trousers he wears before sitting down on the bed. “My Tommy deserves the best.”

Thomas can feel a flush creep up his neck. “I’m sorry if I’ve behaved poorly towards you in these last weeks. I’m not comfortable with being cared for.”

“You’ve made that quite clear.”

Thomas sits up with a wince and sighs. “I don’t want to be your weakness.”

Lucien reaches out, grasps the back of his head to pull him in. Forehead to forehead, he says, “I am stronger because of you. Whoever does not see that will die knowing what a fool they have been.”

They return to the brothel the next week. It’s barely recognizable—a fresh coat of ocean-blue paint covers the outside. The curtains are drawn back from every window, all of them pushed open to let in the breeze. Sounds of work—nails being hammered into wood, the rasp of a handsaw, the chatter of men and women in languages Thomas does not recognize—all emerge from the open double doors.

A woman in an orange headscarf waves from a second-floor window. Thomas waves back.

A group of women—some he recognizes, some he does not—swarms around him and ask to see his scar. Confused, but seeing no harm in it, he lifts his shirt to show the healing scar, thin and perfectly straight thanks to Lucien’s deft stitching.

“Oh, so dainty!” one of the ladies says. “Most men here have such ugly scars all over their bodies. No offense, sir,” she says to Lucien, who scowls.

A young man (for there are men in the group as well; he’s only just noticing them now) places a hand on his back and asks with big brown eyes how much it had hurt.

“Ah, quite a bit?” Thomas says. He looks helplessly at Lucien, who looks torn between wry amusement and bitter jealousy. “But I was tended to by someone very dear to me. Please, excuse me.”

He carefully squirms his way out of the crowd, back to his proper place by Lucien’s side.

“Popular,” Lucien grunts.

“I can’t imagine why. I only got stabbed.”

Lucien’s hand lingers on the small of his back as he guides him through the door.

Inside is even more different than the outside. A group of free women paint the walls with bright and colourful patterns, singing boisterously in their native language. Thomas has never heard anything like it. All around them, people smile.

“You’ve ended the sex trade in Nassau, gentlemen,” Gisele says as she walks down the stairs. She looks different with her hair piled on top of her head and dressed in a long linen shift dress that falls just shy of her bare feet. Lucien snorts.

Gisele sighs. “Imagine if it were that easy. Kill a few assholes, liberate some slaves, cut a few dicks off…”

Thomas looks at Lucien quizzically. He shakes his head.

“Oh, no. That last one was us. Some of our regulars didn’t take the news like gentlemen.” She gestures to a platform that has been raised in the corner of the lounge. “We’ve changed some plans. What better way to cover up noisy smuggling operations than music?”

Thomas laughs in amazement. “You didn’t need my help at all, Mademoiselle.”

“Who said I ever did? I would have had half a mind to take over completely if not for Monsieur Grimaud’s healthy investment. And my gratitude, of course. Now,” she claps her hands together, “let us discuss business upstairs.”

“I don’t think we need you,” is the first thing Nadja says.

She is wearing men’s trousers tied at the waist with a length of rough rope over a billowing cotton shirt. She looks more capable to run a business than Thomas feels.

“We’ll offer you a return on your investment, of course, and leave you with access to the ballroom for your own enterprise.”

She doesn’t just look it; she sounds more than capable.

“And your loyalties?” Lucien asks. Thomas keeps a hand on his thigh as a reminder to be cordial.

“Some of the girls have gotten ambitious and inserted themselves as spies at the taverns that your competitors frequent. We have no choice but to join your side.”

“We’re not fighting a war, Mademoiselle Gisele,” Thomas says.

Gisele smirks. “Not yet.”

“When that day comes, you can count on us. Until then, we still expect a share of your profits.” Nadja shakes a bag of coins that she has produced from one of the drawers of the desk. “This is all that’s left of your gold, Monsieur Grimaud. A lot of people have chosen to stay. Your morals are proving quite costly.”

Thomas nods. “Then we had best get to work.”

On their way out, Nadja stops them. “Five percent each way. Five to us from your shipping company, five to you from my tavern.”

“Good,” Thomas says. Coupled with the information that Gisele’s spies will provide, that will be more than enough to grow their enterprise. That, and the local gossip.

“I’m thinking about calling it The Death’s Head,” Nadja says. She points above the door, where the tarred head of her father rocks gently like a wind chime.

“Grotesque,” Lucien says. He nods his approval.

“It’s going to attract attention,” Thomas muses. “Let everyone know what happened here. It’s time we made a name for ourselves in Nassau.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for: Violence/Gore/Thomas's stubbornness threatening his own health/use of alcohol and opium as painkillers/sex (medium-filthy)


	4. Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Death's Head tavern opens with a celebration, but Grimaud has never been one for parties. Jopson has an idea that just might change his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is rated F for filthy and I respect those of you who are just here for the smut

The tavern opens a week later. The doors open at midday, and people begin to notice. First to filter in are the sailors from the ships docked in the bay, then settlers and shopkeepers and freed men and women and children who are just beginning to establish their new lives on New Providence Island.

Thomas cannot claim any part in their liberation. The revolution was led from within the ranks of the slaves aboard the ships, packed into the lower decks while their captors enjoyed the pleasures of the island. Thomas had merely encountered one such Dutchman outside the small coffeehouse across from The Death’s Head. The Dutchman was staring at disgust at the severed head hanging between the lanterns Thomas had helped install earlier in the day.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” he had said. The slaver had scoffed.

“What did he do?”

Thomas smiled politely. “He sold people.”

“People? Or slaves?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand the difference, sir. Would you, perhaps, mind explaining? And while you’re at it, do you mind telling me which ship is yours? I’d like to commandeer it and sell it to pirates.”

The slaver had looked at Thomas with amusement, and then looked to the alley behind the coffeehouse. “I don’t usually go for blokes, but you’re funny. And clean, too.” He had reached out, and Thomas had taken a step back. Behind the Dutchman, Lucien emerged from the coffeehouse holding two cups of coffee and looking to be in a foul mood.

“Don’t touch me,” Thomas had said, warning in his eyes. The man had laughed and stepped forward, crowding Thomas up against the window of the café. The man’s eyes were fixed on Thomas’s face; he did not notice Lucien place the two cups on the ground and sidle up behind him. The only sound was the ripping of cloth as he plunged his dagger through the man’s back; he had no time to beg. Thomas stepped neatly out of the way as the Dutchman fell. He prodded the body with his boot.

“Are you hurt?” Lucien had asked. Thomas shook his head.

“Would you mind if we took our coffee later? There’s a Dutch slave ship in port that I’d quite like to set on fire.”

Together they had only suggested the revolution. The streets were busy, but the people of Nassau cleared a path for them as they rode, dragging the dead slaver’s body behind them on their way to the port. His fellow sailors, too shocked or drunk to interfere, watched in silence. The body was strung up on a flagpole; by then, they had amassed a group of supporters who raised the corpse like a bloated, rotten flag. The effect was instantaneous. The ships in port were mobbed: holds were broken open; cargo was liberated; the men and women stolen from their homes were freed, and whoever tried to stop it was lost to the fury of the crowd.

And through it all, Thomas and Lucien watched.

“People would never do this in France.”

“They will,” Lucien had said, “once they realize they could be free, if not for the King.”

“He would do well to fear the people. How many would it take to overwhelm the palace? A single arrondissement?”

The sounds of yelling, gunshots, and the splash of water as men were hurled overboard filled the harbour with chaos. People ran in all directions, some joining in the fray, some fleeing. Thomas saw Nadja loading a pistol before climbing the gangplank to the Dutch ship; he watched as Gisele urged the African prisoners to follow her, repeating the words ‘food,’ ‘water,’ and ‘safe’ in as many languages as she knew. Thomas had urged Lucien’s arm around his waist and tucked himself against his side. Together, they watched the harbour burn.

But today, the streets are peaceful. They have not heard a word from the Governor in the big white house on the hill. Thomas has only noticed more strangers poking around the local businesses, but he cannot say if they have any greater motivation than a cup of coffee from Cassandra’s. The strangers are absent today, and he recognizes everyone who passes by the window by which he sits.

Thomas is sitting at a table for two inside the coffeehouse where the Revolution started. The original proprietor had fled, and it is now run by a woman named Cassandra who speaks Spanish to her customers, though it is not her first language.

“A new life, a new name, a new language,” she had told Lucien, who had translated for Thomas. She had lost a child when she fled the coffee plantations of Minas Gerais. “I miss my unborn baby every hour of every day. But I could not raise her to grow coffee. I had to leave or we both would have died. Here, I am free. People pick coffee for me, and I make coffee for everyone to enjoy.”

Cassandra has two assistants: Mutoto, the little girl Thomas had given two coins to buy candy (he had severely underestimated how much candy one coin could buy, let alone two. Mutoto had hauled it back in a wagon, only to find her home was no longer a brothel), and her older sister Diba, who places two cups of fresh coffee on the table in front of Thomas.

“Thank you, Diba,” he says. He takes a sip. “Tell Cassandra it’s as delicious as always.”

Diba shrugs. “She doesn’t understand a word I say. I’ll tell Mutoto to tell her.” Mutoto is playing with her dolls at the corner table, and looks up when she hears her name.

“The coffee is yummy, mama,” she calls to Cassandra in a mix of Spanish and Swahili. Cassandra, behind the counter, winks at Thomas.

“Are you going to the party?” Diba asks him. She sits in Lucien’s empty chair. He’ll arrive shortly; Thomas had caught a glimpse of Aquinas drinking out of the trough outside next to where Bolívar, his own horse, is tethered.

“We couldn’t miss it,” he says. Word of The Death’s Head re-opening had spread far and wide. The docks are full; word had left New Providence Island and spread to merchants and pirates alike. The bustle of the town and noise from the tavern will provide the perfect cover to form new alliances with a carefully selected group of captains. They do, after all, need buyers to traffic their cargo and ships to transport their goods. He hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Crozier in the six months he’s been here, and he is thankful. He doesn’t want to face him. Not yet.

The wooden chimes above the door knock together, and Lucien steps in out of the sun. The humidity and sunshine are not kind to him: his hair becomes uncontrollably fluffy and every morning he scowls at his reflection until Thomas wakes up and smooths it down with practiced hands. Thomas finds the freckles that have sprouted over the bridge of his nose incredibly charming, though he will never admit it. ‘Charming’ isn’t a word Lucien likes to hear.

Diba stands up and greets Lucien quietly, always shy in his presence.

“She must find you dreadfully handsome,” Thomas suggests once she is out of earshot. In the wake of Lucien’s disdain, Thomas adds: “Don’t doubt my good sense, darling. You’re irresistible.”

Lucien shakes his head and sips at his coffee. Through the window, they can see patrons filtering in through the front doors under the blackened head of the former proprietor. The smell of exotic spices begins to spread through the street. Madame Adola is preparing a feast.

“I hope she saves us a plate,” Thomas says. “I’d hate to miss her cooking.” They’ll only sneak in once the party is in full swing, once their cargo has been stashed. The group of spies that Gisele had admonished months ago had come through and discovered (through dubious means, no doubt, but who is Thomas to judge?) that the crew of a local pirate had mutinied with a hold full of treasure and are currently holed up in one of the last organized brothels in Nassau, leaving only a skeleton crew to guard the ship. The very same ladies are currently aboard the Wanderer, emptying its belly of its cargo. Once the music starts, they can start moving it inside through the back door.

“We’ll have time,” Lucien says. He raises his cup of coffee to his lips.

Thomas lifts his own cup. Coyly, over the rim, he asks, “What do we have time for now?” Lucien shoots him a sidelong glance from narrowed eyes. Thomas takes a sip of coffee. “Like I said. Irresistible.”

They don’t have as much time as Thomas had thought. His tongue is somewhere near the back of Lucien’s teeth, but he barely has a hand down the back of his lover’s trousers when the knock comes at the door. They separate, and Thomas is acutely aware there is a fresh hickey blooming on his neck. Hopefully it will distract from the bulge of his cock, straining against his clothes. He wills it away. Like Lucien said, they have time. Lucien, of course, regains his composure in an instant and opens the door while Thomas stands in the shadows, trying to make himself presentable. The ballroom is dark, with boarded up windows and only a single candle providing light. It’s empty, for now, but it won’t remain that way for long.

The sound of drums comes through the wall; the music has started. One of Gisele’s spies, a woman in her mid-forties named Magdalena with formidable strength, is already holding the first crate of spices. Behind her, a horse-drawn cart is laden with more wooden boxes, each labeled as spices, silks, or gunpowder.

“Come on then, lad,” Magdalena says. “Let’s not keep us from the party.”

They arrive before the rest of the band is done setting up on the corner stage. Madame Adola shoveled food onto their plates as soon as they walked through the door, instructing them to eat in the kitchen before carrying on to the main room. She disappears for a moment, then returns with a bottle of rum in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

“The sexy pirate says you must try his rum,” she says. Thomas still has no idea who the ‘sexy pirate’ she refers to is. She pours a glass. He tastes it. It’s very good rum. “And wine for Monsieur Grimaud,” she says as she pours. Lucien nods his thanks.

The food is delicious; it’s a flatbread made of cornmeal, topped with slices of fried mango and chicken doused in a spicy and fragrant sauce and garnished with a wedge of lime. It burns Thomas’s mouth, but he has always found that a sharp sting of pain enhances any pleasure. He pours himself another glass of rum to wash down the meal.

“We won’t stay long,” he says, swirling the dark liquid in his cup. “Another drink. I’d like to hear the music.”

Nadja spots them as they walk through the door to the parlour and points them towards a small table in the back corner. There’s a small sign on the table, reserving it for them. Taking their seats, they watch as a group of Akan musicians take the stage, led by a tall, dark man with a circlet of gold braid wrapped around his head. Like the other musicians, he is clad in patterned orange fabric at his waist, wearing only a golden, fan-shaped pendant over his bare chest.

Without accompaniment, the man begins to sing in a smooth, even voice. His audience is silent, rapt with attention. The rum has gone to Thomas’s head, and he can feel himself swaying to the music. All around them, people begin to dance, pushing tables out of the way and abandoning their drinks to hold onto each other. The musicians join in, one at a time, playing instruments Thomas has never heard before. It’s a beautiful sound, enhanced by the stomping and laughing of the patrons as they spin and clap, each dancing their own dance. A collision on the dance floor results in a hug rather than a fight, and everywhere, the folks that call Nassau their home hold each other’s hands and celebrate themselves.

Lucien seems immune to the fevered joy that sweeps through the tavern. He stares into his glass of wine, frowning. A sudden, filthy idea comes to mind.

It’s the rum, Thomas thinks, as he slides under the table and crawls between Lucien’s legs. The rum, or the atmosphere, or maybe both that make him paw at the seam of Lucien’s trousers, tracing the outline of his cock through the fabric. He buries his face in against it, breathing in deeply. Even the smell of him is enough to drive Thomas crazy with lust.

A hand in his hair is the only encouragement he needs, and Thomas reaches up, pulling the clothing aside just enough to extract Lucien’s cock. A few broad strokes with his tongue is all it takes to harden, and Thomas begins to suck in earnest.

It has been too long. He loves getting fucked, yes, but he loves this, too. He loves crawling on his knees, arse in the air and hunger on his face. He loves the taste of Lucien’s skin—craves it, sometimes, not for the salty musk but for the mere thought that it comes from _Lucien_. He loves to service him, to ignore his own pleasure and watch as Lucien gets off to the view of Thomas on his knees. And here, in the midst of their tavern, where anyone could look under the table and see that Thomas belongs to him, Lucien’s cock comes to life under Thomas’s tongue. The hand in his hair tightens, and Thomas pushes himself as far as he can before he chokes. He pulls back, breathing deep, before doing it again. Having his mouth filled with the taste of him and his nostrils filled with the scent of him has him palming himself through his own trousers. He would be happy to finish like this, hidden under the table in service of his master.

Thomas pulls back to take another breath, licking up the shaft, then mouthing along it, planting wet kisses on its length as he returns to the head. The only bad thing about his position is the table blocking Lucien’s face from view. Watching Thomas swallow his cock has been the only time Thomas has seen him flustered, and he longs to see it again. His imagination will have to be enough for now, and he returns to the task at hand. He has Lucien’s prick butting against the entrance to his throat when he gets kicked lightly in the thigh. Lucien’s boot taps his thigh again, and Thomas can feel his own cock twitch. There is something better than spending in his drawers under the table, and that is rubbing himself against his master’s leg like a dog in heat. He deftly unbuttons his trousers and takes himself in hand, pumping his cock roughly to take the edge off. He shifts Lucien’s leg so he straddles his worn leather boot, and can’t help the groan of satisfaction when he ruts his hips against it.

With another sensation to overwhelm him, the pounding of the music fades into the pulsing in his veins. A sense of calm washes over him, and he takes advantage of it to slacken his jaw and relax the muscles of this throat. This time, when he suckles at the head of Lucien’s cock, he does not stop. He goes deeper, and deeper, until he is rubbing his nose in the coarse pubic hair that grows as dark as the hair on Lucien’s head. He holds himself there, breathing harshly through his nose until his eyes lose focus through the sheen of tears. Only then does he pull back, giving himself a moment to recover before swallowing the hard cock in front of him again. There’s a bang on the table above him: Lucien’s fist. He’s close. The thought of bringing Lucien—Monsieur Grimaud, to whom every movement is calculated; a man who never shows weakness—to orgasm in a crowded tavern is a lovely thought. He moans around Lucien’s cock, and he can feel the vibrations from his throat wrap around the shaft. Frantically, Thomas pulls at Lucien’s trousers and grinds against his boot, desperately seeking the friction that will make him come. Pulling back, he wipes the tears from his eyes and sinks his mouth down on Lucien again. If he had any more use of his mouth, he would whimper. Submission has never been so satisfying, and he is painfully hard. His orgasm is building within him, a fire spreading through his body. Though he’s already at the base, Thomas opens his mouth wider, tries to take more. He wants more. He needs more. He doesn’t realize that he’s pushed so far forward that he’s no longer obscured by the table until Lucien tugs him by the hair and looks him in the eye.

“Swallow,” he commands, and pushes Thomas’s mouth back down on his cock. It’s an order, and the words go straight to his cock. He moans, and then his entire world narrows to the flood of semen pouring down his throat and flooding his mouth as he reflexively pulls back. He swallows.

Lucien bends, peering at him under the table. “Show me.” Thomas opens his mouth, sticks out his tongue. “Good boy,” Lucien says, and pushes him back down to his knees. Taking this as his cue to continue, Thomas finds a better position to rub himself against the leg Lucien offers.

“Ah, Monsieur Grimaud!” He can barely make out Gisele’s voice over the music. “Have you seen Monsieur Jopson?”

Hot shame overwhelms him, but it only makes him harder. Thomas buries his face in the crotch of Lucien’s drawers, pulled down around his thighs, and breathes in the scent of him. It’s depraved—everything about his current situation is depraved—but he loves it. He loves being a good boy and claiming his sweet rewards. He loves the ache in his knees and the bitter taste in his mouth and the fear of discovery has him _so close_.

“No,” Grimaud says casually. “Try outside.” His spare use of words gives nothing away, and Thomas imagines himself doing this again, rutting against his leg under a heavy desk as he discusses business, his guests none the wiser to the scene in front of them. Or maybe they would know. Maybe the scent of his arousal would give him away, or the quiet moans as he sucks Lucien’s cock. Or maybe he would become so desperate that he would not seek the cover of a table or a desk, satisfied just to kneel at Lucien’s feet and let him use his mouth at will. It’s this thought that has Thomas coming over Lucien’s boot, face buried in his drawers, surrounded by the smell of sweat and sex and _him_.

With trembling hands, he fumbles Lucien’s clothing back into place and tucks his own spent prick back into his trousers. He surfaces to find an amused Lucien watching him.

“Gisele was looking for you,” he says dryly.

“I’ve had my dessert. Take me home instead?”

Lucien stands, offering Thomas his hand. Thomas takes it, and lets himself be led towards the horses that will take them home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additonal warnings: a Bad Man assumes Jopson is a sex worker (not for long, though), severed heads as decoration, violent revolution (against Bad Dudes), sex (semi-public, scent kink, mentions of an exhibitionist fantasy, rated F for filthy)


	5. Crozier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas Jopson is sick of getting kidnapped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back! Thanks for reading and indulging in some sexy pirate fantasies with me.

This is the third time it’s happened, and Thomas is getting sick of it.

He understands the logic: kidnap Jopson, arrange an ambush to kill Grimaud. Unfortunately for his kidnappers, the only predictable thing about Lucien Grimaud is the inevitability that he will come for Thomas.

The first time Thomas was kidnapped, it was just Lucien who came to rescue him. Thomas was being held on a ship docked in port, tied to the mainmast like a harlequin damsel. Lucien had calmly walked up the gangplank, handed over his guns to the pirate captain, and proceeded to beat, stab, or strangle everyone between him and Thomas. Thomas still believes the only reason Lucien left any of them alive was that he grew bored of fighting them. He took his guns back, shot through the ropes holding the lifeboat in place, and they jumped overboard, paddling away until they were far enough down the sandbar the few remaining pirates would not chase them. 

The second time, Grimaud brought an army. Thomas had been ignorant to how many patrons of The Death’s Head supported their cause. He was also ignorant of the transformation of the courtyard behind the tavern to a military barracks, run by an Akan man named Coffy who had been a respected warrior in his homeland before he was captured by the Dutch. Thomas had met him once or twice; he often saw him singing and dancing in the tavern. He wore the same smile when he kicked down the door to where Thomas was being held, and it made him all the more intimidating. Coffy and his soldiers cleared the entire building—the cry of anger when he discovered Thomas’s kidnappers were the same Dutch traders that abused them on the voyage from West Africa to New Providence Island will haunt Thomas forever. No slave ships have docked in Nassau since.

These men are English. There can’t be many of them; Thomas has seen three and heard another two voices from outside the storeroom. He’s tucked in behind barrels of molasses and crates of sugar, hands and feet tied. The biggest of the men is sitting in a chair just beyond his line of vision. It’s cold, and Thomas shivers uncontrollably. He’s dressed down to his linens; he was helping Gisele and Coffy load a cart of tobacco that is to be delivered to a Spanish privateer later tonight. He had stepped outside to get some air when he was grabbed from behind and thrown in a cart, hidden under a heavy blanket.

The door creaks open, and the sliver of light, however slight, hurts Thomas’s eyes.

“Bring him here,” a voice says. It’s not one that Thomas has heard before. The big man hauls him to his feet by the rope that ties his hands and he pushes him forward.

“You tied my legs together, you oaf,” Thomas says. The big man grunts and cuts the rope. Thomas walks forward, following him into the light.

“So,” the new man says. He has shoulder-length red-blond hair and a pointed goatee that makes his smug smile look vicious. “You’re Crozier’s man.”

Thomas raises an eyebrow (a trick he had, admittedly, learned from Crozier). “I haven’t seen him in years.”

“But you’re in contact.”

“We were. Not anymore.”

“You’re telling me,” the man sneers, “you show up in Nassau, where your former captain is, and you haven’t crossed paths?”

Thomas shrugs. He’s just as surprised. He’s played out conversations in his mind, just to be prepared if he and Crozier meet again, or worse, he and Edward. He hasn’t seen either of them, nor has he heard anything of their whereabouts.

“But once he hears, he’ll come for you.” The man grins.

“Who?” Thomas could swear the man is talking about Crozier.

“Crozier. Or Little. You have strong ties to both of them, if I recall.”

Thomas can’t help it. He snorts. “How long have you been out to sea? Things have changed in the years since Crozier and Little left me to die.”

The man’s grin widens. “Crozier didn’t leave you, Jopson. I kidnapped him.”

Thomas shrugs. It doesn’t change anything.

The man looks maniacal. His eyes bulge and his face is turning red. “I’m his mortal enemy! His nemesis, the only man worthy of being his equal!”

Thomas sees a dark shadow pass across the window to his left out the corner of his eye.

Lucien has come for him _._

Certain of his rescue, Thomas stretches his legs out in front of him and says with a cocky tilt to his head, “Sorry, _who_ are you?”

The man’s eyes bug out even more. “I,” he says, arms sweeping across his chest in a self-aggrandizing motion, “am the Dread Pirate Hickey!”

Thomas shakes his head. “Never heard of you.”

Hickey’s face is purple with rage.

“I am Crozier’s nemesis!” he screeches.

“You mentioned,” Thomas says. “You should consider moving on with your life, Mr. Hickey. It’s done me wonders.”

“Things are going be changing around here, Jopson,” Hickey says quietly. “You have no idea who you’re challenging.”

The door opens silently behind Hickey. Thomas meets Lucien’s eyes, then Nadja’s, and he throws himself to the floor as gunshots erupt around him.

They take him to the Death’s Head to get cleaned up. There are a few additional severed heads strung up next to Monsieur Beauchamp. Thomas recognizes one of the Dutch slave traders before the wind blows and the head turns its face away from him.

“We aren’t doing ourselves any favours here,” he says, pointing up at the décor.

Nadja shrugs. “Slave traders won’t set foot on New Providence Island now. A pirate just left with a crew to go liberate Saint-Domingue and bring the free people back.” She pauses, then adds, “You just need to stop getting kidnapped.”

“I’ll try harder,” Thomas says. The whole ordeal has left him shaken, and the cold from the storeroom hasn’t abated yet. He asks one of the tavern’s porters for a bath to be brought up to his and Lucien’s room, and once it is drawn he sinks into the tub and lets it warm him to the core. He’s still soaking when Lucien returns.

“Where have you been?” Thomas asks languidly. He’s more than capable of looking after himself, even post-kidnapping, but he is missing the attention Lucien normally lavishes on him after saving him.

“With Coffy. Your English kidnappers escaped. They have a safe house somewhere we don’t know about.” He kneels next to the bath and dips his hand in the water.

Thomas nods at Lucien’s right hand. “It looks like you found one of them.” His knuckles are bloody underneath the rings he wears. Blood still oozes from a cut near the base of his middle finger. Thomas begins to remove the rings, gently twisting them off and handing them to Lucien. When his hand is bare, Thomas takes the cloth and gently daubs the blood away.

“He wouldn’t talk.”

Thomas hums, and scrubs a little harder. Beneath the blood, Lucien’s knuckles are black and blue. “What does it feel like?” he asks, lifting the hand to kiss each bruised knuckle. “To kill a man?”

Lucien looks at his hand in Thomas’s. “With a gun, nothing. With my hands, everything. With a sword, somewhere in between.” It’s a perfectly _Lucien_ answer, and Thomas laughs. He twines their fingers together.

“If I were your enemy, I’d prefer your hands. I’d want you to remember me.” He stands, letting the water run down his body and splash into the tub. Lucien kneels below him now, hand still linked in his like a subject kneeling before his king. “Will you use your hands to bring me a _petit mort_ tonight, my darling? Let me repay my heroic saviour.”

Lucien kisses the back of Thomas’s hand, and leads him to bed.

There’s a man in the stables.

Thomas doesn’t recognize him. He might belong to one of the merchant ships that had recently arrived, perhaps someone of no significance sent to reconnoitre the grounds. At worst, he’s here to hide in the stables until Thomas walks in unaware, then kidnap him. Again.

Thomas has better things to do than be dragged away by another failure of a pirate. He’s alone, though; Lucien is out cutting a deal with the Spanish pirates moored on the other side of the island, but the sun is high and he will return home soon.

_Home._

Thomas never imagined he would have somewhere to call home, someone to come home to. He never imagined it would be a man like Lucien.

But he does, and he is happy, and that is why Thomas takes the loaded gun hidden behind the stack of dishware in the kitchen and walks barefoot and silent to the stables.

The door is ajar; it’s like this pirate isn’t even trying to hide his presence. Inside, the man is digging in a pile of hay.

“Stop what you’re doing, and turn around slowly,” Thomas says. The man starts and reaches for his sword. Thomas shoots. The man collapses in pain, gripping his right arm.

“Who are you?”

The man shakes his head. “Portuguesa,” he says. “Portuguesa.”

“English?” Thomas asks.

“Sí, yes.”

“Good.” Thomas takes a step forward and clubs him over the temple with the butt of the gun.

Lucien arrives home with a heavy bag of gold and a freshly butchered chicken for dinner. Neither of them are particularly skilled chefs—nothing compares to Madame Adola’s mastery of the kitchen at The Death’s Head—but between the two of them they eat well enough. Dessert is a much more exciting ordeal—fresh fruits and cream, sweet pastries, and candied peels; all are shared between them, and Thomas finds nothing tastes quite as nice as when he chases the taste of sugar on Lucien’s fingertips and tongue.

There is a bowl of fresh mangoes that Thomas will cut up for dessert. It sits on the table in front of the Portuguese merchant tied to one of their two kitchen chairs. Thomas sits in the other chair, legs crossed.

“Who is our guest, Tommy?” Lucien stores the bag containing the chicken in the ice box. He leaves the gold on the table.

“I was waiting for you, darling. I found him creeping about in the stables.”

Lucien stalks up to the stranger and flicks the wound in his arm. The man winces in pain and moans through his gag.

“Did I do well?” Thomas asks, trying to contain his smile. Lucien comes to stand behind his chair and slips two fingers down the neck of his shirt. They caress the nape of his neck as he leans down to whisper in Thomas’s ear, “Don’t get cocky.”

Then his fingers are gone, and he pulls another chair up to the table. He sits in it heavily, and slowly raises one leg at a time to rest on the tabletop. He nods at Thomas.

He unties the gag.

“Good afternoon, señor. What were you doing in my stables, and why should we spare your life?”

“I was searching. Looking for something, that’s all. I mean you no harm.”

“Why? What have we taken from you?”

“I—“ he looks nervously at Lucien, “my captain said it might be here.”

“We haven’t taken anything from you.” To Lucien: “Have we?” Lucien shakes his head. Thomas thought as much. With Coffy’s valuable assistance, they’ve been favouring stealing from Dutch merchant ships.

“There are rumours in port. Stories about two Frenchmen. The pretty one and his…” he eyes Lucien, cleaning his pistol with his boots crossed on the table, “…attack dog.”

“Frenchmen?” Thomas can’t help but laugh.

“You are English?”

Thomas shakes his head. “There is only one who can claim ownership of me.”

The man nods with understanding. “The Lord above,” he says knowingly.

Thomas catches Lucien’s eye. “Well, he’ll certainly be above me later.”

The man frowns, rethinking his translation. Lucien smacks the tabletop with the butt of his gun.

“Be patient, darling,” Thomas says in French. After a moment’s consideration, he adds, “He called you a dog.”

Lucien scoffs, puts down his gun. “I’ve killed men for less.”

“Be patient, and you will again.”

The Portuguese merchant taps his foot nervously. “Can you tell him to stop doing that?” he asks. He’s looking at Lucien, who has moved on to polishing the first of the knives he wears on his body with one of Thomas’s nice dishcloths.

“What if instead I untied you and we discussed things like gentlemen?”

“Only if you send him outside first.”

Thomas smiles politely. “Of course.” To Lucien: “Take his horse out of the sun. Take it to the stables, and saddle up Aquinas while you’re in there. We won’t be long.”

“You’ve lost your treasure?” Thomas says as he pours a steaming cup of tea for his guest.

“It isn’t _lost,_ ” the man says. “Our buyer is here to claim it and we cannot _find_ it.”

“I don’t see a difference.” Thomas holds up a hand when the man tries to answer. “And so you come to _my_ house. To what? To dig through my hay? To kidnap me and hold me for information? You wouldn’t be the first to try, señor.”

“You’ve built quite a reputation for yourself, Monsieur Jopson. Jopson the Diplomat and Grimaud the Mercenary, running the old guard out of business. ‘Finding and selling all manner of treasure,’ they say. We merely thought you may have… _found_ ours.”

“You would do best not to underestimate Monsieur Grimaud,” Thomas says. Underestimating _him_ , of course, is expected, and something Thomas is counting on.

“I do not. If you were ordinary men, I wouldn’t be sitting here with an offer.”

“You are sitting here because you were caught, señor.”

The man shifts in his chair. Blows on his tea, Takes a sip. He lowers the cup down to the table, then raises it for another sip.

“I was hoping we could combine our powers to search for it. Your tavern is manned by too many slaves—“

“Freed men and women,” Thomas interjects. “Working for a wage and provided with shelter. Treated kindly, and with the freedom to come and go as they please.”

“Either way, many idle hands that could assist us. Divide up the profits appropriately when we make the sale.”

“Well, where did you hide it?”

“In the ground. Not more than a half day’s ride from here.”

“And I assume someone has a map? Or have you lost that, too?”

The man taps his chest. He is wearing clothes too heavy for the weather—leather sewn with sinew over linen that sticks to his damp chest. There must be an inner pocket in the leather outercoat. Waterproof, most likely, and hidden.

“I know your game, Monsieur Jopson. I won’t let you see my map.”

Thomas leans back in his chair, having unconsciously leaned forward in anticipation of seeing the location of the treasure chest. He raises both hands in mock defeat.

“Caught, I’m afraid. How many men do you have at your disposal?”

“A-ha! Again, I must keep some secrets from you, Monsieur.”

“Well, then I suppose I must ask. What percentage do myself and Monsieur Grimaud receive?”

“Twenty.”

Thomas laughs. “No.”

Thomas rises from his chair, plucking the half-full cup of tea out of the Portuguese merchant’s hands. He dumps the tea out the window and places the cups near the washbasin. He leans against it, arms crossed in front of him.

“You sneak into my home, call my partner a dog, and then insult me with your offer? Your intentions are clear. You need a road that runs to the other side of the island. The only road of this nature passes in front of my house. You were going to capture me, yes? Torture me until I promised you safe passage through the road because you think I am weak, and I will break. I am not a weak man, señor, but I am a forgiving man. You will give us seventy percent, and I will forget your bad intentions.”

“It isn’t personal, Monsieur Jopson.” He gestures haplessly towards the window, where the stable door is ajar. “Grimaud would kill us all if we didn’t have leverage.”

Thomas presses his lips together and nods. “Seventy percent for cooperation, then.”

The merchant looks utterly defeated when he shakes Thomas’s hand.

Lucien brings the Portuguese merchant’s horse around while they make plans to meet in a fortnight.

“You have him well trained,” the merchant laughs. His face has gone back to a healthy colour, and he smiles a big, yellow smile. Lucien fixes him with a final glare as he returns to the stables behind the house.

“You must have a secret for controlling a man like that! You keep him well fed?” His eyes drift down to Thomas’s shirt collar where it lies open against his tanned skin. His chest is littered with red marks sucked into skin and bruises from teeth and hands, desperate to claim him. There is no hiding them, so Thomas no longer tries. He stretches his neck languidly, watches the merchant’s eyes catch on the constellation of marks that pepper the right side of his neck that Lucien favours so, before smiling tightly and drawing the other man closer.

“My secret, señor, is that _I am his_ as much as he is mine. I have no control over Monsieur Grimaud’s actions.” He pauses, lets his words sink in. “I believe it is in your best interests to run.”

Lucien leads his horse around in time to see the Portuguese merchant gallop away, dust rising from the road under the hooves of his horse.

“You let him go?”

Thomas leans in, wraps his arms around Lucien’s shoulders. “Didn’t you hear, darling? They call you my attack dog.” He plants a swift kiss on his cheek.

“ _So go fetch._ ”


	6. Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimaud and Jopson find buried treasure; Jopson puts some of it to good use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi this is all smut
> 
> (additional warnings for improvised sex toys, dirty talk about exhibitionism, rough sex and spanking)

They find the wooden chest buried four feet down on the side of a hill. It takes longer to dig it up than to find the plot of disturbed earth where it is buried.

“We have to assume they’re as stupid as they seem,” Thomas had said as he laid the bloodstained map out on the table. Lucien had cocked an eyebrow, flipped the map upside-down, and that was how they found the lost Portuguese treasure.

The box is a heavy wooden chest with a brass key plate. It’s plain, but it makes the secrets contained within so much more mysterious.

“Gilded tombs do worms enfold,” Thomas recites. He’s never been one for Shakespeare-- he prefers to read in French—but he can’t deny the allure of the words.

“Worms have more value than most of the trinkets these men collect,” Grimaud calls over his shoulder as he mounts his horse.

“Poetry is lost on you, my darling,” Thomas jokes back. He climbs onto the back of his horse, and they begin their ride home.

“So, what is it?”

Thomas is hovering over Lucien’s shoulder as he pries the hinged lid off the chest. Lucien shoves Thomas gently away with an open hand.

“I’ve read about the Egyptians trapping their treasure chests with venom,” Thomas says. “It sprays out when the seal is tampered with.”

“I don’t want to hit you with the pry-bar,” Lucien mutters, forcing the flat metal edge in deeper and throwing his body weight against it. With a crack, the lid splinters apart.

The contents of the chest glitter like a thousand tiny candles. Tangles of gold chain encase jewels of so many colours—red ovals as dark as blood, delicate blue squares embedded in intricate gold lace, and on top of them all, a crown that would have made the King of France weep with jealousy.

“Oh,” Thomas says. He reaches into the chest, all concerns about Egyptian poison forgotten, and pulls out a necklace. It was made by weaving cords of gold together in a braid. Each place the strands meet is marked with a diamond. Hanging in the centre is an enormous blue sapphire. Lucien is sifting through the chest, tossing rings aside into the splintered lid. Finally finding something adequate, he swaps the heavy ring he wears on his little finger for one from the chest. He takes Thomas’s hand, pulling it away from the sapphire, and slides the spare ring onto his finger.

Thomas already wears one of Lucien’s rings: the one he stole before they parted the first time, slipped off his finger and onto Thomas’s. It’s too big to sit anywhere but his thumb, so he wears it on his left hand so it does not get in the way of a gun. But this ring is smaller, better suited to the long, slender ring finger Lucien slides the ring onto. The metal is warm from his skin.

“Are we to be married now?” Thomas asks with a grin.

“Don’t be cheeky.” Lucien rocks back on his heels. A moment later, he says, “Such things aren’t a fine enough gift for you.”

“Oh?” Thomas is holding the sapphire necklace again, admiring how the facets of the gem catch the light. “Will we keep it, then? If these jewels aren’t suitable for even me, surely we won’t find a buyer.”

Lucien scoffs and takes the necklace from Thomas’s hands, laying it aside. “For the King of France or the Queen of Portugal, this chest would be a fine gift. But for you? Nowhere near what you deserve.” A moment later, he clarifies. “You have no use for shiny trinkets.”

Thomas pulls a strand of pearls out of the chest and runs them through his hands, letting the pearls fall back against their bed of gold chains and gilded cups. A trio of silk scarves, discovered next, are tossed onto their bed.

“What if I said I have a use for some of this?” he asks. He stands, looking directly at Lucien as he pulls his shirt over his head and lets his trousers fall to the floor. “Come now, will you help me dress?”

He is covered in gold, from the golden crown on his head to the bangles around his ankles that knock together with metallic _pings_ whenever he moves. His arms are heavy with bracelets and golden cuffs, fingers laden with thin rings with insets of exotic stones. He is, from his neck to his knees, bare, when Lucien begins to improvise. He wraps a chain embedded with diamonds around Thomas’s waist, clasping it against his hip. The next chain is laid over his shoulder like a sash, and the next links the two together, falling in the same gentle sweep as the outline of a rib. Grimaud continues to draw out chains, some gold, some studded with diamonds, and wraps Thomas like a gift. He stands behind him, fingers untangling the chain that runs from around his neck to the cleft of his arse. His fingers brush against Thomas’s spine and he shivers. The pearls that Thomas had found earlier make a brief appearance as Lucien brushes them over his erection, wrapping them loosely around the length before they tumble to the floor. By then Lucien has moved on to a pair of tiny rings connected by delicate chain. He hooks the chain onto another that crisscross Thomas’s chest and pushes the rings against him so that the narrow circlets surround his nipples. Lucien pulls at the chain experimentally, and Thomas is struck with pleasure as the sensitive buds are tugged and squeezed by the rings.

Finally, the necklace that Thomas had been eyeing is taken gently in Grimaud’s rough hands and wrapped around his neck. The sapphire is cold and heavy against his sternum.

“I should take you into town like this, clad only in gold. Everyone will know you are mine,” Lucien whispers in his ear.

Thomas turns, closes the distance between them and walks them backwards, pushing Lucien towards the bed with a single open palm.

“Everyone knows,” he says. “I wear every mark you give me—the bites and bruises from your teeth and lips and hands—like one of these golden chains. I dress so everyone can see. I want them to see, to know that I belong to you. And more, that I am yours by choice, not necessity. Given a hundred men, I would always choose you. A thousand, even. Every man in France could offer me riches and love and I would always choose to be yours.”

“You would pass over a title to sit at my side?”

“I don’t want a title. You’ve given me everything I need.”

He pushes Lucien flat on his back and climbs over him, the heavy sapphire pendant dangling between their bodies.

“And don’t I already have a most perfect throne to sit upon?” Thomas smiles. He rolls his hips, luxuriating in the feel of Lucien’s hard cock rubbing against his entrance. Lucien draws a deep breath.

“Please,” he says, “have a seat.”

Thomas shifts his weight, leaning back until he is directly above the proud jut of Lucien’s cock. He touches the head to his hole, circles his hips once before sinking down, taking all of it inside him with a gasp. He shifts his hips again, like he is swaying to gentle music, tightening and relaxing his walls of muscle that sheathe Lucien’s prick in time to his silent dance. He fills him so beautifully.

Thomas opens his eyes without realizing they had closed. They must have, because he would remember Lucien looking at him like this.

“How do I look?” Thomas asks. He reaches up to adjust his crown, though he knows it has not moved since Lucien placed it on his head.

“Regal,” Lucien says. His voice is hoarse, and he licks his lips before continuing. “Erotic.” His hands gently trace up Thomas’s flanks, shifting the chains that fall like ribs over his sides. “Powerful.”

Thomas covers Lucien’s hands with his own when they come to rest on his hips. “You’ve made me this way. I am your creation.” He places his hands on Lucien’s belly, runs them up his broad chest, over the scars and through the dark hair that Thomas has rested his head against so many times before. Bearing his weight against Lucien’s shoulders, Thomas leans down to nuzzle against Lucien’s cheek, sighing when the cock inside him shifts, and he whispers:

“There is no greater pleasure in the world than to be yours.”

The kiss, when it comes, is unlike any that Thomas has experienced before. It’s harder, it’s deeper, it’s somehow more ferocious yet more heartfelt than any kiss has been before.

There are some that say Lucien Grimaud does not have a heart. This is not true; Thomas has felt its beat, seen the blood rise in Lucien’s cheeks, has laid his ear against his Lucien’s chest and listened to his heart work, but he has never been given a glimpse of it as freely as he is now. The kiss is everything they have never said and will never say; the kiss ensures they will never need to say them. Their lips fit together. _They_ fit together.

And then Lucien’s teeth sink into his bottom lip, and Thomas has never loved him more. He leans back, keeping a hand on Lucien’s chest to still him, and begins to move.

He rides Lucien’s cock harder than he has ever ridden a horse. The bed is creaking wildly; the rebound from each slam of his hips makes them bounce, and when he catches it just right, he can feel Lucien’s cock as deep as when Lucien puts him on his belly and fucks him hard. It may be more satisfying to find himself face down on the bedspread, finding his own release in Grimaud’s violence, but to bounce and writhe and grind in his lap is a different pleasure entirely.

Like now, seated upon Lucien’s thick cock like the most regal throne, Thomas finds the fire in his belly growing. Lucien does not hide the lust in his eyes: he does not look away, eyes instead raking over the planes of Thomas’s body and catching on the erotic chain that links his nipples. His hands leave Thomas’s hips only to pull on that chain, tugging it down until Thomas slows the bouncing of his hips into a languid roll, grinding his arse against Lucien’s stones, drawn up tight against his fully sheathed cock.

He rolls his hips now, trying in vain to take more inside him. If he could get just a little bit deeper, with a slight change in angle…

And then Lucien is pushing him onto his side and pulling out, and this might be the part that Thomas looks forwards to most.

“On your knees,” Lucien says quietly. His voice is soft, yes, but far from gentle. He could command an army with a whisper if he so chose, but instead he chooses to command Thomas.

Thomas complies, bracing himself on hands and knees, awaiting the return of Lucien’s prick to his empty, aching hole.

Instead, a hand strikes his hip where it meets thigh. He jolts and yelps, but it doesn’t hurt any more than what he enjoys.

“Wasn’t I being good, monsieur?” he asks after the next strike of Lucien’s hand.

“You were, Tommy. You’re a very good boy.”

Another slap echoes off his skin. He can feel the warmth of it now, reddened skin and the beginnings of a delightful purple bruise that he will wake up with tomorrow.

“Then why—“

“Because I know what you like. I know what you need, Tommy. You need to be spanked and bitten and bruised. You need to be filled up, deep. You need to take whatever I give you and you need to love it. You need to beg for it, beg for _me_ , because that’s the only way you get off. You need my cock buried in your hole so much and so often that slicking you up with oil is just a habit. You’re always ready for me to bend you over and slide inside, like the sheath for my sword.”

Lucien’s hand strikes his arse next and Thomas cries out. His cock is so hard it barely moves when the next slap lands on the opposite thigh.

“This is what you need,” Lucien growls.

Thomas cries out again with the next smack. “Yes,” he whimpers. “Yes, I need it. It’s so good, Lucien.”

Another open-palmed smack. “Turn around. I want you to watch while I fuck you.”

Thomas falls to his side, eyes still watering from the sting. Lucien has the strand of pearls in his hand, and Thomas rolls onto his back to better see what Lucien is doing. The quick brush of his prick against the bed covers was almost enough to make him spend, but Lucien was right. He needs more. He needs Lucien.

With his eyes on Thomas, Lucien begins to wind the strand of pearls around his cock. Thomas whimpers.

“Please,” he gasps, “I want to feel it.”

His hole is slick and open, and the bracelets clasped around his ankles knock together as he raises his legs over Lucien’s shoulders. He wants to impale himself on that cock, feel the pearls rub against his insides as he writhes against the bed underneath his lover. But Lucien is in control now, and he slides in with a single thrust. The pearls have made his cock wider, and taking it all at once is more than what Thomas is used to. With the first thrust, Thomas forgets about the stretch. The pearls move inside him—one, two, three, all brushing over his prostate and he wails with the sensation. It’s too much, even once, but Lucien isn’t stopping. He starts slow, thrusting in and out in a relaxed, regular rhythm. The look on his face is that of pure bliss, and he kisses the inside of Thomas’s knee as he speeds up the movement of his hips.

Thomas can’t look away. The visual sensation is the only thing grounding him, keeping him from slipping away and losing himself to vivid, red-hot pleasure. It doesn’t last long—soon, the look of ecstasy on Lucien’s face becomes a new source of arousal as he reaches unknown heights of pleasure, panting and moaning above Thomas’s body as he fucks him into the mattress. Lucien’s moans are barely audible over the increasing volume of Thomas’s whimpers and pleas for both mercy and promises to never stop. The pearls are slipping off Lucien’s cock, staying inside Thomas only to be fucked in deeper with each thrust. The feel of the pearls slipping in and out of his hole has his toes curling, and with uncharacteristic violence he fists a hand in Lucien’s hair and crashes their mouths together as he comes. Spurts of come cover the diamonds at his waist and Lucien pulls out suddenly, leaving the pearls half inside of him, and adds his spend to the belt of diamonds.

Sighing, he pulls the pearls out and slides his cock back inside Thomas’s stretched hole. Lucien thrusts lazily a few times, smirking as he watches Thomas thrash back and forth. The crown flies off, clattering to the floor beside the bed. The sapphire pendant slides in the sweat pooled in the dip of his collarbone, catching the light and casting a dynamic prism of blue against the ceiling. Lucien isn’t looking at the sapphire, but at the ruby-red blood that cascades from Thomas’s nose. He pulls out slowly and rolls off of Thomas.

“Ow,” Thomas groans. His voice breaks, vocal chords exhausted from screaming his pleasure.

“You should consider another way to show your enthusiasm in the future,” Lucien says with a half-smile. He balls up one of the silk scarves abandoned on the side of the bed and holds it against Thomas’s nose.

“I like your mouth,” Thomas says petulantly. He had hardly felt his nose collide with the side of Lucien’s face when he pulled him in for that final kiss, but he doubted he would have felt an earthquake.

The corner of Lucien’s mouth quirks upwards in another half-smile, and he removes the scarf again to cover Thomas’s lips with his own. Thomas deepens the kiss, unconcerned with the blood dripping onto Lucien’s face. His mouth feels sticky and metallic, and Lucien’s mouth feels cool against his. When he pulls away, Lucien’s cheek is smeared with Thomas’s blood.

Reaching up to dab at the blood drying under his nose, Thomas taps Lucien on the thigh with a toe. “Do I still look like royalty?” he asks coyly.

Lucien leans in and kisses some of the blood away. “More than ever,” he says, licking his lips.

Later, when the sun has disappeared beneath the horizon, Thomas wakes with Lucien’s face pressed against his chest.

“Are you awake, darling?” he asks, though he knows his question will wake his lover from his light sleep. Lucien sits up, no trace of sleep in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

Thomas lifts a hand to cup Lucien’s cheek and pull him back down. “Nothing. I had an idea. I think perhaps we should organize a meeting with the French and the Spanish. Hold it in a chateau, or somewhere with a lock on the door. We lock them in, let them kill each other, and sell the chest back to the Portuguese.” He looks at Lucien for approval.

“My clever Tommy,” he growls, climbing over Thomas’s supine form, “who wakes me up in the night, looking for praise. Haven’t I praised your body enough today? Or do you want more?”

“I always want more, Lucien.”

Lucien leans down, pressing their chests flush, and whispers, “You will have it.”

The chest is hidden under the floorboards, all but two pieces replaced. The first is a tapered gold wine stopper with a flanged edge. Lucien says nothing as he slides it into his pocket, and Thomas does not ask. The second is the sapphire necklace. Lucien steers Thomas in front of the small mirror on the bureau and hangs it around his neck, clasping it at his nape. In the mirror, Thomas watches Lucien’s reflection. He does not spare a second glance at the necklace; he looks only at Thomas.

Thomas turns around and Lucien brushes the pad of a finger over the sapphire. “It’s the same colour as your eyes,” he says gruffly.

Thomas reaches for him, pulling him into an embrace. “We’ll make a poet of you yet, my darling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how's that heatwave treating y'all?


	7. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jopson crosses a boundary; Grimaud likes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops sorry this chapter is about 60% smut and 40% murder
> 
> (A major Terror character who is a minor character in this fic dies; basically all the smut-related warnings from previous chapters still apply; derogatory use of the word 'sissy' and 'whore'; gratuitous Spanish because Grimaud still doesn't speak English and Hickey doesn't speak French)

The smell of gunpowder wakes Thomas from his nap. The wind blows the sulphurous stench through the broken window. Just last night a pirate tried to surprise them by breaking in during the night, expecting to catch them asleep and unaware-- Lucien was unprepared only long enough to pull his prick out from between Thomas’s slick thighs. He dealt with the pirate quickly and returned to Thomas, sweat and blood glistening on his bare skin, and held him closer and fucked him harder, the thrill of bloodlust singing in his veins. Thomas shivers more from the memory than the breeze, but pulls the blankets closer around him as he slides out of bed and shrugs on Lucien’s coat. Out back, near the stables, a barrel of gunpowder sits innocuously on its side, spilling its contents over the grass.

Thomas shakes his head and fetches his gun.

“You’re too late for the treasure,” Thomas says as he kicks the wooden stable door open. “The Portuguese navy should have it in their possession by now.” He walks the length of the stable slowly, pausing to peer into each stall and kick around the hay. There are more barrels of gunpowder stacked on either side of the door. It’s a good technique. If Thomas and Lucien were ordinary merchants, they would surely be killed in the blast. But Thomas and Lucien are professionals, and whoever is behind this shoddy assassination attempt is not going to see their plan through.

Bolívar whinnies, tossing his head back and forth before kicking a leg backwards and catching the would-be assassin in the chest. He falls backwards on the hard ground. Thomas can hear the wind being knocked from his lungs, and takes the opportunity to reach over and pet Bolívar’s grey mane.

“Good boy,” he says, scratching his horse behind the ear.

He turns now to the man on the ground and covers his windpipe with his boot. The man looks into his eyes and smirks.

“Mister Hickey, was it?”

“ _Dread Pirate_ Hickey. But I’ll let it slide this time.”

Thomas laughs lightly. “You shouldn’t be here when Monsieur Grimaud gets back. Take your gunpowder and kerosene and go back to whatever penal colony you escaped from.”

“Well, that’s the thing, Mr. Jopson,” Hickey says. He is remarkably calm for someone with a boot against his throat. “I’ve been living in Nassau for quite some time. You’ve just never noticed.”

“I only pay attention to important things.”

“And yet,” Hickey continues, ignoring the sleight against him, “you haven’t seen Crozier.”

“Crozier doesn’t matter to me.”

“Nor have you met the governor.”

Thomas sighs. “I don’t have time for your bullshit, Mr. Hickey,” he says, and shoots Hickey in the thigh.

Lucien arrives home in good spirits. He tosses a bag of gold on the table. It slides across the polished wood until it comes to a stop in front of Thomas. Thomas is sitting at the table, feet crossed on the chair opposite. He’s sipping a glass of the dark amber rum that Lucien held back from their latest shipment to England. It is sweeter and sharper than what he was given as a sailor, and he enjoys the pleasurable hum that goes to his head.

“Darling,” he says, sliding off the chair to his knees. Lucien sits in his vacated chair, and Thomas rests his head upon his thigh. Bloodstained fingers tangle in his hair. Thomas rubs his cheek against the rough fabric of Lucien’s trousers. He can feel the hot skin underneath. He breathes in the scent of him, the sweat and dust from the day’s travel. Thomas nuzzles closer until his nose is buried in the crotch of Lucien’s trousers.

“I love the smell of you,” he says. Lucien pets his hair and scratches behind his ear like he is a good puppy.

“D’you want a treat?” Lucien says, voice rough. He takes a sip of Thomas’s rum, grimacing at the taste.

Thomas nods eagerly, pulling down Lucien’s drawers and kneeling between his spread legs. “Tell me about your day. I want to hear your voice.”

The hands return to his hair, brushing it back from his forehead and behind his ears, scratching at the nape of his neck in encouragement when Thomas sucks the head of Lucien’s cock into his mouth.

“Mmm?” Thomas hums, bobbing his head up and down the length.

“Went well,” Lucien grunts.

Thomas pulls off and rubs his cheek against the spit-slick length. “Your attention to detail is pristine, my Lucien.”

Lucien snorts and flicks the end of Thomas’s nose. Thomas laughs, and mouths along the side of Lucien’s cock, dropping a hand down to squeeze at his bollocks.

“I locked the Spanish and the French in the parlour room at The Death’s Head. Gisele took the chest to a rich Portuguese traveler. A royal bootlicker, one of those types.”

Thomas takes Lucien’s cock back into his mouth, working his mouth down the shaft until he feels it at the entrance to his throat. He holds it there, on the edge, before pulling back. Lucien makes a quiet, frustrated sound.

“He paid for it. Didn’t seem to notice anything missing. It’s done now.” Lucien’s words are getting shorter, breathier, and Thomas, suddenly pulls back. He leaves the hand on Lucien’s stones, kneading and caressing.

“Ah,” Thomas says. He had almost forgotten. “The Englishman who kidnapped me is tied up in the stables.”

He licks the head of Lucien’s cock again, flicking his tongue over the slit and rubbing the flat of it against the thick vein on the underside.

“What would you like me to do with him, Tommy?”

Thomas smiles and presses a wet kiss to the head of Lucien’s cock.

“I think I’d like to kill him.”

Grimaud looks thrilled when he comes across Thomas’s face.

Hickey is exactly where Thomas left him: tied to a chair in the last stall of the stables, unbandaged wound still oozing blood. Through his gag, Hickey tries to yell something when he sees Grimaud stalk through the door, but falls silent when he catches sight of Thomas easing the door shut behind him.

Thomas comes to stand in front of Hickey and digs the toe of his shoe into the ragged wound. Hickey hisses beneath the cloth gag, but his eyes stay narrowed and filled with hate. Lucien rips the gag off him and hands Thomas his knife. He takes a seat on the bales of hay opposite him and leans back, comfortable. Keeping his eyes locked with Thomas’s, Lucien spreads his legs. His dark eyes glitter in the light that filters through the slats. He nods.

Thomas turns. His hand does not tremble around the handle of the knife.

“I’m going to kill you, Mr. Hickey,” he says calmly.

Hickey snorts, then spits at Thomas’s feet. “Have you ever killed anyone before, Jopson?”

Thomas just smiles, and, in one fluid movement, grabs hold of Hickey’s ear and slices it clean off in one swipe.

“ _Ow,_ ” Hickey says. “Alright, so you’re not a sissy. Well, at least not in that way. Remind me, Jopson. Which one were you sleeping with? Little? Crozier? Both? Or whichever one paid better?”

“You seem very invested in the whereabouts of my penis, Mr. Hickey. Perhaps you should consider why that is.”

“Does your rabid dog know what a degenerate you are, Jopson?” Hickey calls out to Lucien. “Oy, ¿sabes que es una puta sucia?”

Thomas looks at Lucien, who snorts. “Él _fue_ una puta, sí.”

Hickey blinks, confused.

“What did you say to him?” Thomas asks.

“I corrected his verb tense.”

“I didn’t take you for a pedant,” Thomas says with a wry smile.

“He said you’re a whore. I said you _were_ one.”

“Do you let him fuck you, Jopson?” Hickey tries again.

Thomas shakes his head and begins to slowly circle the chair where Hickey is tied. He bends down next to Hickey’s remaining ear and whispers, “Every night, Mr. Hickey, and whenever I want him to. After I kill you, I am going to leave your body here to rot while I go inside and ride his cock until every trace of you is erased from my mind. You are no one to me. You are nothing.”

Hickey begins to laugh. It’s quiet at first, but it grows until he’s chuckling heartily and pitching forward for breath.

“Oh, Jopson. I can bring down your entire enterprise with one word. I—“

“ _Enough,_ ” Thomas growls, and brings the knife down in Hickey’s other thigh. “I don’t care.” Behind him, he can hear a rustling of fabric and the clink of Lucien’s metal belt buckle.

“You two are _filthy_ ,” Hickey gasps. “Fine. What do you want? I’ll send a message to the governor and we—“

“I have everything I want,” Thomas says. “And people like you want to take it away from me.” He slides the knife between Hickey’s ribs, testing the resistance. His flesh cuts like butter under Lucien’s knife.

“I don’t want anything,” Thomas continues. “I just want you to hurt. And I want everyone to know not—“ Thomas draws his arm back and slashes him across the chest with all his strength “— **to _fuck_** —“ another slash, this time to the stomach, “—with me.”

The last slash of the knife cuts deep into the bicep of the dread pirate. A spray of bright blood splashes against Thomas’s face as Hickey sputters and chokes in front of him.

Thomas breathes in deeply through his nose. The metallic tang of blood is covered by the smell of horses and fresh hay. He can hear the shifting of cloth as Lucien unbuttons his trousers and slides the clothing down his thighs.

“How long have you been touching yourself?” he asks before he turns around. The dying pirate in the chair is still awake, ropes holding him in place.

“The ear,” Lucien says.

Thomas’s blood pulses hot through his veins. He wants more. More blood. More violence. More of Grimaud’s eyes on him, touching himself as he watches him work. He takes the next best thing. He turns around, throws himself into Grimaud’s lap while the Dread Pirate Hickey bleeds out behind him.

The seams of his clothes rip under Grimaud’s insistent fingers until the shirt hangs off his shoulders, slipping down and covering him down to his thighs as he is divested of his trousers and smallclothes. The bleeding man behind him is wheezing now; pitiful sounds that make Thomas feel sick. Thomas ignores it for the pounding in his ears, the moans that escape his lips as he ruts his throbbing cock against Grimaud’s thigh.

He needs more.

Thomas lifts himself up on his knees, straddling Grimaud’s hips. He shifts, letting Grimaud’s cock rub against his hole.

“Tommy,” Grimaud says lowly. Thomas reaches for his hand, brings it to his lips. He takes two fingers into his mouth, down to the rings that adorn them. The metal feels cool against his nose as he rubs his tongue against Grimaud’s fingers. He can taste the metallic tang of blood. He doesn’t know if it’s from his mouth or Lucien’s fingers, and the thought arouses him. They are bound by blood now; not their own, but by the blood they have spilled for each other.

“Lucien,” Thomas whispers around the fingertips that sit against his mouth. “ _Fuck me.”_

Lucien’s fingers find his hole with practiced ease.

Thomas can’t wait. He needs more.

He thrusts his hips back, taking two fingers inside him. He throws his head back; his exposed neck is immediately latched onto by Lucien’s teeth, biting and sucking and licking the blood off his neck and chin.

More.

He licks his palm, lines himself up, and sinks down on Grimaud’s cock.

It hurts. It’s ecstasy.

Lucien is still licking at the blood on his face, but his eyes are trained on Thomas’s.

“Was I good, darling?” Thomas pants. He starts moving, grinding against the cock inside him.

“My good boy,” Lucien growls. “My beautiful boy. You look beautiful when you kill for me.”

“For us, Always for _us._ ” Thomas says, thighs quaking. “Now please, I need—“

He doesn’t need to say it; Lucien knows. Thomas rolls away, lets himself be arranged by his lover like a ragdoll until his legs are wrapped around Lucien’s waist and his arms are linked around his neck in an embrace. Lucien presses their foreheads together, and presses back inside.

The sensation blankets him. He’s only aware of the pleasure crackling through his body, starting at that spot inside him that erupts with each thrust, through his spine, up through his chest, behind his eyes. They’re breathing the same air, sharing the sweat that drips from their brows. When it threatens to overwhelm him, he buries his face in Lucien’s still-clothed shoulder. It muffles his cries as he is pushed further and further towards the edge. He is beyond words. The tears that trickle down his cheeks feel like blood drying on his face.

Lucien grabs him by the hair and yanks his head back. He looks him in the eye for a moment, hips still working tirelessly within the cradle of Thomas’s own, then crushes their mouths together.

Thomas comes undone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow these boys sure bang a lot


	8. Politics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The late Dread Pirate Hickey causes a disturbance from beyond the grave.

The knock on the front door is frantic, but Thomas ignores it. The crash of adrenaline has overtaken him completely, and he lies in bed, boneless and exhausted but without a sense of remorse. Lucien answers the door after pulling on the first pair of breeches he finds. They’re Thomas’s, and they fit so tightly against his arse that Thomas blushes.

He opens the door.

“We captured a Marine,” Gisele says by way of greeting.

“We killed a pirate,” Lucien answers.

“The British Marines were hired by the governor and they’re here to kill you.”

Lucien swears.

They had done a good job of avoiding politics thus far. The elusive Governor seemed not to care what occurred in the town below his pristine white house on the hill, so long as he was untouched and he continued to take a cut of the profit off the goods coming and going through the harbour. A cut which Thomas and Lucien were not offering.

“I thought this one was French,” Gisele said once they arrived at The Death’s Head. “but his French is terrible. He can’t even say his own name right.” She leads them up the stairs to the makeshift interrogation room. “Private Des Voeux,” she says. “Or Day-Vough, apparently.”

Des Voeux squints at Lucien with a surprising amount of suspicion, given that he is tied to a chair with no means of escape.

“I told the woman everything,” he says. “If you let me go, I’ll be on the first ship back to England.”

“Tell us again, Private,” Thomas asks politely. He sits with a wince, then stands. He catches Lucien’s eye and winks.

“Got called in by the governor. Was working with a privateer to make some inquiries around you two, find out who you were working for. Thought it might be Crozier, given that you were Crozier’s boy back in England. Hickey’s been digging up dirt for a while, reporting to the governor. He thought he’d invite us in to… dispose of you. You’ve been awfully inconvenient.”

“We’re not easy to get rid of,” Thomas says. “You said _Hickey_ was working for the governor?”

Des Voeux nods. “Ratty little bastard, but good at what he does.”

“What he _did,_ ” Thomas corrects. Des Voeux whistles.

“You’re in for it now, Jopson. And friend,” he adds, nodding at Lucien.

Lucien unsheathes his dagger and begins cleaning his fingernails. He flicks dried chunks of Hickey’s blood onto the floor. “You were easy enough to get to talk,” he says.

“I’m a selfish bastard,” Des Voeux shrugs. “Some of the marines have a sense of honour.”

“How many are there?”

“Ten? Fifteen, at most? Some of them were already here. Tozer and Armitage were complaining that they could have killed you months ago if Hickey hadn’t insisted his usual dramatics. How he survived the multiple gunshot wounds from Friend of Jopson and the scary woman downstairs is beyond me.”

“How selfish are you, Mr. Des Voeux?” Thomas asks. “What do you want most in this world?”

“Never given it much thought. Money, probably. It’s why I joined up. Why most of the guys joined up, really.”

Thomas looks at Lucien. He shakes his head.

“Excuse us.” Thomas pulls Lucien outside the door by a hand. “I have an idea,” he says, and Lucien does not hesitate to squeeze his hand and say, “I trust you.”

The Death’s Head is packed full of people. There are people upstairs, listening through the floorboards. There are people outside, listening through the windows. Everywhere, there are people of all ages, of all races, of all professions. For a moment, Thomas thought he saw Crozier, but when he looked again all he saw was a group of shopkeepers chatting amongst themselves. Thomas is pretty certain he even caught a glimpse of Charles Vane in one of the corners. 

And standing alone in the centre of it all is Lucien.

“For too long,” he begins, and the noise of chatter dies, “we have been subject to the whims of a man who hides himself away behind an iron gate. The same iron which has been used to forge the chains that held you when you were stolen from your homes. All in the name of a dying empire that this man represents.” He points in the direction of the house on the hill. “We don’t even know our governor’s name. We have never seen the man. All we know is that he sends men from England to kill us when we don’t work for him. We work for ourselves, here. We are a free people, and we cherish our freedom.”

Coffy leads a booming “Hear, hear!” that resonates around the crowd.

As the crowd quiets again, Nadja speaks up. “Are you saying we abolish the governance?”

“No,” Lucien says. “Tell me, who has ever been protected by the governor?” Silence. “Who has gone to the gates with a grievance, only to be turned away by the guards? Or had English marines search your shops or abuse your families?” A low murmur fills the room. “We are the ones who made New Providence Island rich. We are the ones who should have the power.”

“So we choose a leader?” Gisele says. She is sitting next to Thomas, and he can feel his cheeks redden. This was a bad idea. It’s not going to work.

Lucien looks at him—Thomas can see the pride in his eyes—and before he can change his mind and suggest Gisele as their new leader, Lucien says quietly, “There’s only one man who I would trust with that power.” He says it so quietly that the crowd in the back pushes forward to hear his next words.

“One man who, on the day of his arrival, liberated this very building. From a den of vice, he transformed it into a safe haven; a place for everyone. He liberated this brothel, yes, but he did not stop. He will not stop. Thomas Jopson is the reason slave ships are afraid to pull into port. Thomas Jopson is the reason that men like Marc Beauchamp are part of the furniture while women like Gisele are free to do with their bodies as they wish. But he isn’t alone. He never has been alone. From the beginning, Thomas Jopson has relied on your support, and you took a chance in trusting him. But tell me—has Jopson ever let you down?”

“He is not very good at dancing!” Coffy shouts. He gives Thomas two thumbs up and a wide, white smile. “But I have learned French so I can give him better dancing lessons.”

Thomas buries his face in his hands and starts to laugh. The laughter bubbles out of him; he can’t stop it any more than he can stop the waves from lapping at the beach, or the rise of cheers among the people— _his people_. Lucien hops down from the chair he’s standing on and pulls Thomas to his feet. The crush of people around them forces him into Lucien’s arms, and Thomas reaches up, locking his arms around Lucien’s neck and pressing their foreheads together.

“We take what we want from a world that has failed us,” Thomas says, remembering Lucien’s words from so long ago.

“What next, Tommy?”

Thomas laughs again. “I would have been satisfied with just you, you know.” It must be a trick of the light, or the orange glow of the sunset filtering through the window, because it looks like Lucien’s cheeks have gone pink. A moment later, Thomas finds himself pulled backwards through the crowd to the chair on which Lucien delivered his speech. He steps up onto it. Above the crowd, he sees an ocean of multicoloured faces awaiting his word, but there is only one face he looks for before he begins to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jopson and Grimaud will return to lead another revolution in... 
> 
> The Governor of New Providence


End file.
